Clarifai Deletes Millions of Dating App Photos After FTC Settlement

An artificial intelligence firm has erased a trove of user data obtained under questionable circumstances, closing a chapter on a years-long regulatory dispute. Clarifai, a Delaware-based AI company, has deleted three million profile photos it sourced from the dating platform OkCupid in 2014. The move follows a confidential settlement last month between the Federal Trade Commission and Match Group, OkCupid's parent company.

According to Reuters, Clarifai certified the data's destruction to the FTC in early April. The company also informed the office of Representative Lori Trahan (D-MA) that it had scrubbed any machine learning models developed using the images and had not provided the data to outside parties.

The FTC's inquiry began in 2019 after reports revealed Clarifai built a facial recognition training database with OkCupid photos, an action that contravened the dating site's own privacy policy. Internal communications show Clarifai founder Matthew Zeiler directly requested the data from OkCupid executives, who complied. The images were used to create a service designed to infer age, gender, and race from a person's picture.

In a 2019 statement to The New York Times, Zeiler argued for public trust in technology companies' use of such data. Some of OkCupid's founders were early investors in Clarifai. As part of its settlement with Match Group, the FTC issued a permanent prohibition against OkCupid misrepresenting its privacy practices—a provision industry observers noted merely restates existing FTC regulations.

Source: Engadget