OkCupid shared 3 million user photos with AI company in privacy breach

OkCupid shared nearly three million user photos and associated personal data with an AI company in violation of its own privacy policies, according to a recently concluded Federal Trade Commission investigation. The dating app provided the photos, location data, and demographic information to Clarifai, an AI startup, in 2014 without user notification or consent. The transfer occurred despite OkCupid's privacy policy explicitly stating it would not share personal data with unconnected third parties. Court documents show Clarifai founder Matthew Zeiler contacted OkCupid co-founder Maxwell Krohn requesting access to the platform's data for AI training. "We're collecting data now and just realized that OKCupid must have a HUGE amount of awesome data for this," Zeiler wrote. OkCupid complied without establishing any formal agreement or usage restrictions. The company's founders were investors in Clarifai at the time. The FTC opened an investigation into the data sharing in 2019, but the case was only resolved this month. Under the settlement, both the photos and the AI model trained on them have been deleted. Parent company Match Group has been banned from misrepresenting its data practices for the next 20 years. However, the FTC lacks authority to issue financial penalties for this type of privacy violation. The incident highlights ongoing concerns about how dating platforms and social media companies handle user data as AI training becomes increasingly valuable.