The AI platform Clarifai deleted 3 million photos that it says it got from OkCupid to train its facial recognition AI, according to Reuters. The company also deleted any models that were trained using that data.
Per the FTC’s investigation, Clarifai asked OkCupid — whose executives had invested in the company — to share data in 2014. The dating app then provided these user-uploaded photos, reports say, along with other demographic and location data. Per OkCupid’s own privacy policies, this behavior should have been prohibited.
“We’re collecting data now and just realized that OKCupid must have a HUGE amount of awesome data for this,” Clarifai founder and CEO Matthew Zeiler wrote in an email to OkCupid co-founder Maxwell Krohn, according to court documents reviewed by Reuters.
Though this incident appears to have taken place 12 years ago, the FTC did not open an investigation until 2019, when a New York Times article about Clarifai mentioned that the company had used images from OkCupid to build an AI tool that could estimate someone’s age, sex, and race based on their face.
The FTC and OkCupid, which is owned by Match Group, settled the lawsuit last month. At the time, OkCupid and Match Group did not admit to the allegations that it deceived users by violating its own privacy policies, but Clarifai’s confirmation that it has deleted the data implies that the company did indeed get access to those photos. The FTC also alleged that since 2014, Match Group and OkCupid deliberately concealed this behavior and attempted to obstruct its investigation.
OkCupid and Clarifai did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s requests for comment.
While the FTC is not able to fine companies for this type of first-time offense, the agency declared that OkCupid and Match are “permanently prohibited from misrepresenting or assisting others in misrepresenting” the nature of their data collection and sharing. So, OkCupid and Match are prohibited from partaking in these behaviors, which are already not allowed by the FTC.
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Amanda Silberling is a senior writer at TechCrunch covering the intersection of technology and culture. She has also written for publications like Polygon, MTV, the Kenyon Review, NPR, and Business Insider. She is the co-host of Wow If True, a podcast about internet culture, with science fiction author Isabel J. Kim. Prior to joining TechCrunch, she worked as a grassroots organizer, museum educator, and film festival coordinator. She holds a B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania and served as a Princeton in Asia Fellow in Laos.
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