Google Artwork & Tradition App's Selfie Matching Characteristic Involves India

The Arts & Culture app matches images of people's faces with art from a variety of different eras of history - with varying degrees of success.

The app, which is available on both and, is more than a year old, but the selfie feature, according to CNN.

Sign up today for a free 30 day free trial of unlimited digital access.

The find-your-art-lookalike feature has been available since mid-December, but the app has rocketed to viral status as more users shared their matches on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram over the holiday weekend, in a mix of implausible, absurd and "spot-on" comparisons.

Google says the app is now only available in parts of the United States, but expanded coverage is being worked on.

Google Arts and Culture app make use of the computer vision technology to match a selfie with an artwork from a huge database. While that would seem to cover at least some of its bases, the legal liabilities it faces in Illinois, Texas, and elsewhere are evidently still too high to risk a release; speaking to NPR, Northwestern University law professor Matthew Kugler speculates that "Google is showing an abundance of caution here".

Google already uses it in its Photos service, which 500 million people use every month.

The portrait comparison is just one feature of the app, which also lets users take virtual tours of historic museums such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in NY.

To find your "art face", you must, select "Is your portrait in a museum?" and submit a photo.

And in September, Apple's Face ID, introduced alongside its latest mobile phone, the iPhone X, sparked debate over the privacy and security of using a person's face to unlock the device and enable applications, including mobile payments.