Avast_Blog_Privacy: Facebook's new dating service sparks privacy concerns

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What happens when you stop using an online dating site or app? Do online dating services delete your data?

The goal of online dating is to find a romantic match, whether that’s for a night or for life. That means, unlike social media for example, most people aren’t using their accounts for an extended period of time. So what happens to your online dating profile after you close it out? 

If you’ve used an online dating site or app, you gave them a lot of information. Sites like OkCupid and Match.com are explicit about it, asking you a catalogue of questions in order to (hopefully) provide you with a love match. Sites like Tinder and Grindr, on the other hand, collect a bunch of information in the background, oftentimes without user knowledge. And they all claim to use artificial intelligence to find the right person for every member.

“Artificial intelligence is a fancy buzzword,” Jen Caltrider, lead researcher at Mozilla’s *Privacy Not Included guide tells Avast. “It’s like this shiny ball that these companies are using for marketing. That’s fine for pet toys or something like that. But when you get into dating apps, you don’t know what’s being collected or why or how it’s affecting how you date.”

And you know what AI needs to work, right? Data. Lots and lots of data. Which explains why dating sites like to gobble up so much of it. They need that data to improve their services in order to gain more customers and, in some cases, to sell you ads. Or at the very least share your information with third party data brokers. 

“Like all things, it all comes back to money,” Caltrider says. “They make money off of collecting your data and selling it.”
Caltrider also points out that these sites are notoriously bad when it comes to security. “Almost all of the major ones have had their data compromised at some time,” she says. 

So if you’ve given up a bunch of extremely personal information to a dating site or app, what happens to it when you leave? Here’s what I found out.

What data do online dating profiles collect?

There are a lot of online dating sites and apps, so let’s focus on a few of the top ones: the Match Group (which includes, among others, OkCupid, Match.com, Tinder, Hinge, and PlentyOfFish), Grindr, Bumble, and Spark Networks, which includes Jdate and ChristianMingle. 

What data does Match Group collect?

Match Group is massive, encompassing nine sites and apps — including some of the most popular ones in the United States. Each service collects slightly different data to serve up slightly different results — like match.com is usually for people looking for a life partner, while Tinder is generally more about short term dating, and the data they need to deliver those results differs. At the minimum you can expect that a Match Group site or app knows your gender, location, sexual/romantic preferences

Match Group says that they don’t share your information between sites unless you ask them to, but they also say in their privacy policy that they might share that info for “limited and critical purposes, including for corporate audit, analysis and consolidated reporting, to comply with applicable law, and help keep our users safe.” And the *Privacy Not Included guide for Tinder points out that they don’t have a great track record in this area.

What data does Grindr collect?

Grindr asks for a lot of personal information, including the obvious — name, email, phone number, date of birth, HIV status, location, photos, and videos — and the less obvious — technical information that includes user activity, hardware and software info, sensor activity and cookies, and “other tracking technologies.” 

And despite the fact that their user base is often vulnerable, especially in countries with anti-LGBTQIA+ laws, Grindr doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to keeping all of that information safe. That’s especially concerning when you consider how common nudes — which aren’t a problem on their own but do open up potential for exposure — are on the app. 
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