Match.com, Tinder Sharing of Biometrics, Other Info Class Action

Match Group, LLC, which does business as Match.com, offers more than forty dating applications, including Tinder. Tinder collects private information on its users, which the complaint for this class action claims includes biometric information, which it shares with third parties. The complaint alleges that Tinder’s use of this information violates New York state privacy laws and laws governing the collection of facial recognition information.

Two classes have been proposed for this action:

• The Nationwide Class is all users in the US of Match Group’s dating apps who had their biometric identifying information or personally identifiable information (PII) collected by Match Group during the applicable statute of limitations.
• The New York Class is all users in the state of New York of Match Group’s dating apps who had their biometric identifying information or PII collected by Match Group during the applicable statute of limitations.

Match Group has a monopoly over the dating app market, the complaint alleges, and can therefore require users to submit extensive personal information, including biometrics, if they want to participate. Biometrics are different than other kinds of identifying information because, even if they are stolen, they cannot be changed.

Tinder offers the verification of users, and the complaint quotes it as saying, “To get verified, you’ll submit a short video selfie that we’ll compare to your profile photos. We use a combo of trusty humans and facial recognition technology to compare facial geometry in the selfies you submit and in your profile pics.”

Tinder claims to perform both a Liveness Check, which verifies that the video depicts a real live person, and the 3D Face Authentication, which looks at facial geometry and uses facial recognition technology to check whether the person in the video selfie is the same as the one in the profile photos. This is purportedly to ensure that users are not using fake images to deceive others.

The complaint quotes the California Privacy Rights page of Tinder as saying that biometrics are shared with “[v]endors and professional services organizations who assist us in relation to the operation of the feature” as well as “joint marketing partners.”

The complaint claims this page also reveals that the information shared includes real names and aliases, IP address, Social Security number, signature, state ID or driver’s license number, passport number, credit or debit card number, other financial information, and information on protected classifications, such as race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and so on. According to the complaint, it also shares things like browsing and search history and interactions with websites and ads.

The complaint thus alleges that the dating app “collects a massive amount of PII and shares that PII with parties that any person … would find highly offensive.” Users, it says, “not only have no control over who their data is shared with, but have no idea who the end user of their PII ultimately is, the purposes for which that data is being collected and how it will be used.”

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Privacy
Tags: Biometric Data, Sharing Personal Information with Third Parties, Taking/Storing/Using Biometric Data, Your Privacy