Kim Kardashian endorses the 'Gradient' app, but is it safe?

Kim Kardashian endorses the 'Gradient' app, but is it safe?The Gradient app has garnered a lot of traction recently due to high-level influencers who are promoting it. The app has a lot of features but the most popular among them is the celebrity lookalike feature. This newly added feature is what has generated such a buzz on social media, and the fact that it is endorsed by Kim Kardashian herself only adds to further its popularity. Finding a doppelganger has always been something that can peak someone’s interest but there are a number of things about the app that are important to stay informed on. How does it work? In order to use the celebrity lookalike feature, a user first has to upload a selfie of themselves. Once that is done, the rest is up to the app itself, within a short amount of time the application will scroll through its archives and find the person’s celebrity twin/ lookalike. Once a close enough match is found, it will create a four image transition grid which will highlight the matching process. There are other ways to use the app, the most common among them would be as an image editing and photo enhancement app which is used to make pictures sharper. The app is available on both iOS and Android, under the name 'Gradient Photo Editor'. The app is available with a 3-day free trial option, when it expires the users will automatically be put onto a monthly payment cycle, charging $20 / month. There are options that allow the users to change pricing options to either a monthly payment plan or a weekly payment plan but only if they manually change the settings during registration. Is the app safe?Seeing as users will be asked to upload their pictures to the app’s database, speculations in regards to the kind of privacy the application provides its users. These fears have escalated ever since the viral selfie app called 'FaceApp' got linked to possible Russian interference and spying. The apps’s terms and conditions state it “does not claim ownership of Your Content that you upload or stylize through the service. However, its terms do not end there, it further goes on to say, “You hereby grant to Gradient a non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use Your Content to provide our service, subject to the privacy policy.” The app was created by a developer that goes by the name of 'Ticket to the Moon Inc' but little is known about the company at all, not even if they have developed any facial recognition software in the past. The app’s terms and conditions disclose the company’s address but if a quick address check is done, the company name that comes up on the given address brings up an international investment firm named Meihua Capital Partners LLC rather than the developers. Ultimately the decision lies in the hands of those who choose to publish their pictures online.

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