While we’re out here waiting for an app that will tell us how far we are from a pub that serves both prosecco and chips, one that will compare the price of an item of clothing with similar ones across all the high street brands when we scan its label, or an app that shows us whether the bus we’re about to get on has seats available, here’s one that removes women’s makeup without their consent.
The app, called MakeApp, uses AI, is free via the Apple app store and Google Play, and needs access to your camera roll to source the images.
‘MakeApp lets you add or remove makeup from any face!’ boasts the app description. ‘Choose a photo or video, press one button and let the app do its magic!’
And, as you probably predicted, it’s already being used for all the wrong reasons; ‘Running all my tinder matches through this! Stay mad roasties!’ wrote one reviewer.
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The app was designed by Ashot Gabrelyanov, who spoke to Business Insider, highlighting its potential use as a way of identifying women who have been trafficked: ‘In most of these cases, makeup is heavily used to disguise the age and/or identity of these people,’ he told the publication.
‘If human traffickers can hide these victim's identities, their chances of rescue are low.
‘When security services show an image and say “Is this your daughter?" heavily applied permanent makeup often makes the identification process quite difficult. We hope our technology may help families and authorities identify victims for rescue.’
He also said he is in contact with organisations that work with victims of human trafficking.
Gabrelyanov is super proud of his app too, here are some tweets showing off its capabilities with video:
With any new technology, there are always going to be people who use it for the wrong reasons and those who use it for good, and it's very impressive technology, but what’s the obsession with ‘unmasking’ women?
The average British woman spends £112.65 a month on her appearance, according to recent report commissioned by Groupon, £53.87 of that is on the face alone.
For some women, makeup is more than just a ‘luxury.’
For some it makes them feel like a completely different person, it changes their behaviour, makes them more confident, able to do things they wouldn’t normally dream of doing.
Many women feel they cannot leave the house without makeup on – and lots of the women I know personally wouldn’t dream of doing so unless it was an emergency.
Even if you don’t feel this way about makeup, this app sets a dangerous precedent – no one has the right to remove something that you chose to put on.
Here are some examples, and since I’m making the argument that no one should remove someone else’s makeup without their consent, I’ll use images of myself (all selfies, soz). takes a deep breath
LOTS of makeup on
Quite a bit of makeup on
Hardly any makeup on
You can also put makeup on with the app, not sure why my lips are grey but OK
Verdict: this is definitely NOT how I look without makeup, these are just blurry images of me with makeup on, with added dark patches so nowhere near as horrifying as I first thought it would be. But I wouldn’t want anyone using this unflattering app on images of me without my knowledge.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.