Snapchat’s new Time Machine ageing filter is like FaceApp (but less controversial)

Snapchat has just released Time Machine, a new ageing lens that’s guaranteed to go viral. It lets you slide between looking really young and looking really old, and it’s a lot like FaceApp − but minus most of the privacy fears.

As you’d expect Time Machine a lot of fun to use, and it works through your phone’s selfie camera and front-facing snapper. And we all know what that means: hours spent terrorising your friends, of course!

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To access the Time Machine filter, take the following steps:

• Fire up your phone’s app store and reinstall the Snapchat app
• Spend a few minutes trying to remember your login details
• Once you’re in, tap the filter icon
• Select the option that shows a baby and an old person side by side (Time Machine is available on both iOS and Android)

The Snapchat app will give you a quick tutorial on how to use the filter, but it’s a case of slide left to go back in time, and slide right for a wrinkly fright.

Remember FaceApp? It was a summer sensation, and at one point it was near impossible to scroll down your Twitter or Instagram feed without catching a glimpse of a digitally aged (or de-aged) selfie.

However, people’s enthusiasm for the app quickly died after fears were raised that the app, which was launched by a Russian developer, had been harvesting users’ entire photo libraries.

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There was, however, no evidence to suggest that this was indeed the case, and it’s likely that the rumour managed to spread so successfully because of the Russian connection.

Investigators did, however, find that FaceApp was uploading users’ pictures to servers located in the US for processing, rather than locally on the device − but then again this isn’t that unusual.