Visited those pages that match your face to a celebrity? Yeah, never a good idea. This, however, does not stand true when it comes to Google’s two-year-old app, Google Arts and Culture. This app is allowing users to upload their selfies and using its machine learning face-matching technology it finds portraits from decades of painting that look quite similar.
This feature came with the mid-December app update and invaded social media as people are sharing their own museum painting doppelgängers including celebrities. They are sharing their amusing results on social media handles which certainly seem to have boosted Google Arts & Culture position in the App Store’s charts, making it the most downloaded free app.
Hey this one ain’t so bad. pic.twitter.com/er0FxZNVO8
— Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) 13 January 2018
Information about the app states that it has partnered with more than 1,200 international museums, galleries and, institutions from 70 countries to make their exhibits available for everyone online. Hence, the paintings of the face-matching app are authentic. This app works on an algorithm that uses an image of a face, creates a faceprint using some unique attributes and facial elements. Then, it goes on to match the faceprint with one of the thousands of arts available.
The app has, however, raised some major privacy concerns as people are predicting this selfie feature might be a way to create a facial recognition database. Google has clarified on the same saying the image stays just as long as a match is searched. The image is deleted once the match is made.
Hey good morning everyone, this Google Arts and Culture app is scary. pic.twitter.com/yt2kSYMWyM
— Ding Dong Daddi (@sixthsentz) 13 January 2018
While we can download the app, this feature remains exclusively available in just the U.S. as of yet. Fret not, there’s still a way to find your doppelganger. All you need to do is install a VPN service from Play Store or the App store, for example, Opera VPN, since it is easy to operate. Once you install it, switch your location to the United States. Open the Google Arts and Culture App, keep scrolling down until you come across a card saying “Is your portrait a museum?” Keep following the instructions and you are all set!
