Online services occasionally breach their data protection guidelines by sharing user images, resulting in delayed financial resolutions years afterward. Reuters reports that artificial intelligence firm Clarifai has removed 3 million user pictures sourced from the dating platform OkCupid back in 2014. This action comes after a recent agreement between the Federal Trade Commission and Match Group, which owns OkCupid.
The company, headquartered in Delaware, verified the removal of the dataset to the FTC on April 7. Clarifai also assured U.S. Representative Lori Trahan, a Democrat from Massachusetts, that it had eliminated all AI models developed using the images and had not distributed the material to external entities.
The FTC launched its probe in 2019 following a New York Times article exposing how Clarifai created a dataset for machine learning from OkCupid's user profiles. This conduct contravened OkCupid's own data privacy terms. Documents examined by Reuters indicate that Clarifai requested the images from OkCupid's leadership in 2014, and the platform's executives apparently granted access.
Clarifai promotes its facial analysis tools through examples of such profiling capabilities.
In an email to OkCupid co-founder Maxwell Krohn, Clarifai's founder Matthew Zeiler expressed enthusiasm about acquiring the platform's extensive image collection for their project. The emerging AI business applied these photos to develop a system capable of detecting individuals' age, gender, and ethnicity. Additionally, Clarifai's unauthorized access to municipal surveillance feeds for similar purposes has since been discontinued.
During a 2019 interview with The New York Times, Zeiler argued that society must build confidence in technology providers like his company to responsibly deploy advanced tools. Reports suggest that certain OkCupid co-founders held stakes in Clarifai.
Under the terms of the agreement, the FTC has imposed a lasting ban on OkCupid regarding false claims about its data handling and security measures. According to TechCrunch, this sanction stands out as unusual since existing FTC regulations already prohibit such misrepresentations.