Approximately 3 million user photos from the dating app OkCupid were used for AI training by a third-party company. This situation directly contradicts the company's own privacy policy...

The privacy violation dates back to 2014, but according to a report by TNW, this case was only resolved this month, and both the photos and the AI model produced from them were deleted.

The incident began over a decade ago. The founders of OkCupid were investors in Clarifai, and Clarifai's founder Matthew Zeiler contacted OkCupid co-founder Maxwell Krohn in 2014 to request access to their data.

“We are currently collecting data and just realized that OKCupid must have an enormous data source for this,” Zeiler wrote, according to court documents quoted by Reuters.

OkCupid handed over nearly three million user photos, along with location and demographic data, without any formal agreement, without imposing restrictions on how the data would be used, and without informing users or allowing them to opt out.

Yes, apparently it was that ordinary. The company's privacy policy had made a clear promise not to share personal data with unconnected third parties.

The Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation in 2019, but for reasons unknown to us, it had to wait until this year to resolve the issue. In addition to the deletion of the data, OkCupid's parent company Match Group was banned from misrepresenting its data practices for the next 20 years. (Does this mean they will be allowed to lie after 21 years? Curious minds want to know...)

I'm sorry, the FTC does not have the authority to impose financial penalties for such privacy violations.

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