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Federal regulators have accused OkCupid of secretly transferring personal data to a startup company linked to its own founders, subsequently engaging in a lengthy cover-up.
On Monday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) initiated legal action against OkCupid and its affiliated company, alleging that the dating app clandestinely shared millions of users’ photos, locations, and personal information with an external company. The FTC’s lawsuit claims that this covert data-sharing continued undisclosed for over a decade.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Dallas, targets Humor Rainbow, Inc., the Dallas-based operator of OkCupid, and Match Group Americas, LLC, which supports Humor Rainbow’s operations. Both entities are subsidiaries of Match Group, Inc., the well-known online dating conglomerate that owns Tinder, Hinge, and Match.com, among others.
The allegations center around a data transfer in September 2014, when OkCupid allegedly provided nearly three million user photographs, along with demographic and location details, to Clarifai, Inc., a tech startup. According to the FTC, this transfer was motivated by OkCupid founders’ personal financial interests in Clarifai, rather than any formal business agreement.
“The FTC is committed to enforcing the privacy assurances that companies make,” stated Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “We will investigate and, when necessary, prosecute companies that breach their promise to protect user data.”
At the time of the data transfer, OkCupid’s privacy policy told users the company would not share their personal information “except as indicated in this Privacy Policy or when we inform you and give you an opportunity to opt out.” The policy listed narrow exceptions: service providers, business partners and companies within OkCupid’s corporate family.
Clarifai fit none of those categories. The FTC says OkCupid executed no formal data-sharing agreement with the company, placed no restrictions on how the data could be used and collected no payment in return. Users were never notified and never given the chance to opt out.
What followed the 2014 transfer, regulators allege, was an extended effort to conceal what had happened. When a news outlet began investigating Clarifai’s use of OkCupid data, company executives drafted a statement that obscured the relationship. OkCupid later told users directly that any suggestion it had shared their data with Clarifai was “false.”
The FTC said the concealment efforts included attempting to obstruct the agency’s own investigation, which eventually required the Commission to take OkCupid to federal court just to enforce a demand for records.
As part of a proposed settlement, OkCupid and Match Group Americas are permanently prohibited from misrepresenting their data collection and privacy practices. That includes making false claims about how they collect, use, share or protect personal data such as photos, demographic information and location data, and about what privacy controls users actually have.
OkCupid has not publicly commented on the settlement.