Nearly two dozen dating apps were flagged Tuesday by Mozilla Privacy Not Included researchers as failing to meet privacy and security standards, sharing customer data with third parties and excluding a user’s right to ‘delete your data from the application.
According to Mozilla, financial pressures are forcing app owners to change direction, experiment with new features and subscription models, integrate AI, diversify revenue streams, gamify apps to make them more addictive and siphon more data from their users, while security is too often neglected.
Eighty percent of dating apps share or sell their customers’ data and do not guarantee all users the right to delete their data, the researchers noted.
Dating apps labeled with Privacy Not Included warnings include Badoo, Black People Meet, BLK, Bumble, Christian Mingle, Coffee Meets Bagel, Elite Singles, Facebook Dating, Grindr, Her, Hinge, Jdate, Lovoo, Match, Muzz , OkCupid, OurTime, Lots of Fish, Scruff, TanTan, Tinder and Zoosk.
Dating Apps Rejected by Gen Z
“The problem is that dating apps say they need to collect this personal information to help you find the perfect person, but they use this information far beyond what might help you find a partner,” said Zoë, researcher and writer at Privacy Not Included. McDonald.
“They share and sell this information to advertisers,” she told Technews.fr. “And half of them don’t meet our minimum safety standards.” This means that data is at risk of being breached, leaked or hacked, making it accessible to almost anyone.
Mozilla researchers say dating apps are in dire financial straits due to a decline in popularity. As millennials have married, Generation Z — younger, poorer, more tech-savvy and less prone to casual sex — has become disenchanted with apps, hurting their creators’ bottom lines. According to the New York Times, the two biggest players in the space – Match Group and Bumble – have lost $40 billion in market value since 2021.
“As the first generation of digital natives, you might expect Gen Z to embrace dating apps, but the social anxiety this generation experiences seems to be holding back dating apps,” said Brian Prince, founder and CEO of Top AI Tools, an AI tool. , an educational resource and platform in Boca Raton, Florida.
Prince cited a report from the dating app Hinge that found Gen Z is avoiding dating apps and even dating in general for fear of rejection. “Going online can be scary for a generation that struggles with feeling uncomfortable, so to speak,” he told Technews.fr.
“In general, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find potential partners on dating apps, with catfishing and harassment rampant,” he added. “Plus, apps tend to hide some of the best features behind a paywall, making it harder to establish proper connections. »
Generation Z overwhelmed by privacy concerns
The pandemic may also have impacted Gen Z’s attitudes toward dating apps, suggested Ashley Johnson, senior policy manager at the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a research organization. and public policy in Washington, DC.
“They were young adults during the Covid-19 pandemic and social distancing, so they may be looking for more in-person relationships now to make up for those years,” she told Technews.fr.
“It’s also much easier than before to connect with other people through online services other than dating apps, such as social media, so Gen Z may have less need for online services specifically for dating if she uses more general-purpose services for all kinds of interactions, including romantic ones,” she said.
Alicia diVittorio, a data privacy expert and advocate for DataGrail, a San Francisco data privacy company, added that her company’s research shows that while Gen Z lives much of their lives online, they is more sensitive to privacy issues.
“Younger generations are more aware and feel more overwhelmed by their online privacy,” she told Technews.fr. “Nearly 50% of Generation Z feel overwhelmed by privacy, compared to only a third of baby boomers. »
“And,” she continued, “with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, younger generations are absolutely more fearful about how their data can be used. »
Collecting too much geographic data
Mozilla researchers also found that the majority of apps studied collect users’ geolocation by default unless they opt out. Other apps like Hinge, Tinder, OKCupid, Match, Plenty of Fish, BLK, and BlackPeopleMeet adamantly insist on access to users’ precise geolocation data and may still collect that data whether someone uses the app or not , they added.
“A lot of these apps want access to your location 24/7, whether or not the app needs that access to function,” said Mozilla’s MacDonald. “It’s a liability because it’s really sensitive information, and any time it’s transmitted over the Internet, it’s going to put that information at risk. »
Shared or stolen geolocation data could be particularly harmful to women in the wake of Roe v. Wade, says DataGrail’s diVittorio.
“Part of the reason California reached a deal with Sephora in 2022 was because they shared women’s geolocations, and some were concerned that information could get into the hands of people monitoring women seeking abortions,” she explained.
“In the Sephora case, which the company settled for $1.2 million, the state alleged that Sephora violated the California Consumer Privacy Act by selling customers’ personal information without disclosing this practice correctly nor obtain explicit consent. »
Necessary functionality or security risk?
Frankly, this information can be found through countless other applications, so the threat posed here is specific to how the data is misused, asserted Ira Winkler, CISO of CYE, a cybersecurity optimization company in Tel Aviv, Israel.
“Some dating apps allow users to know exactly where other users are in their immediate vicinity,” he told Technews.fr. “This allows malicious parties to find a user with basic information, then quickly search other sites to collect much more information than possible and manipulate and abuse other users. »
“There are horror stories about users having their geolocation data misused,” ITIF’s Johnson acknowledged. “However, geolocation data is important for dating apps. If users want to find other people geographically close to them – if they are not interested in long-distance relationships and want to meet someone nearby – a dating app would need their geolocation data to put them connected with the right people.
“But,” she added, “safeguards should be put in place to protect this data from unauthorized use.”
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