A Delaware artificial intelligence firm has destroyed 3 million dating profile photographs and related facial recognition technology following a federal privacy investigation involving OkCupid users.
Clarifai confirmed to federal regulators this month that it eliminated the user images and associated AI models after the Federal Trade Commission reached a settlement with the dating platform over privacy rule violations.
The dating service reached an agreement with the FTC in late March for sharing user photographs and personal information to help develop Clarifai’s facial recognition systems back in 2014. Some Democratic lawmakers criticized the settlement as insufficient.
According to documentation reviewed by Reuters, Clarifai provided written confirmation to federal regulators on April 7 that the data had been removed from their systems.
The Delaware company also informed the office of Massachusetts Representative Lori Trahan on April 16 that it had eliminated all AI models created using the dating app data and had not distributed the information to other organizations, her office confirmed.
Trahan, a Democrat, described the confirmation as “a step in the right direction,” while adding that “the FTC should have never settled for less in the first place.”
“Misconduct by AI companies should never go unnoticed or unanswered, and I’ll continue plugging gaps left by this partisan FTC to ensure Americans’ privacy and safety comes first,” Trahan said in a statement.
FTC spokesperson Joe Simonson responded: “This is a completely baseless issue manufactured by Democrats who do nothing but lie for a living.”
Federal regulators lack the power to impose financial penalties for the violations identified in this case. Clarifai, which obtained the information after making a request to OkCupid, faced no accusations of misconduct.
The company did not respond to inquiries about the number of AI models removed or their operational duration.
The Delaware-based firm specializes in facial recognition software that can identify people in photographs and videos while analyzing characteristics like age, ethnicity, and gender, according to company information. Clarifai has secured government military contracts and received funding from technology giant Nvidia and other investors.
Company founder Matthew Zeiler pursued the dating app data in 2014, when several OkCupid executives had financial stakes in Clarifai, court records show.
“We’re collecting data now and just realized that OKCupid must have a HUGE amount of awesome data for this,” Zeiler wrote in an electronic message to OkCupid co-founder Maxwell Krohn.
Federal regulators determined the information sharing violated OkCupid’s stated privacy practices and federal laws prohibiting misleading business conduct. OkCupid and its parent company Match Group, which operates Tinder and additional dating services, committed to accurately representing their privacy policies under the settlement terms.
The federal investigation began after a New York Times report in 2019 during the previous Trump presidency.
