The Dutch Consumers' Association recently investigated dating sites that many Dutch people use and how these sites handle member data. The result: not good. Most dating sites collect data and sell it on to third parties. In fact, some sites place cookies on your computer without asking permission.
The following popular platforms were scrutinized:
50Plusmatch
Happn
Parship
Paiq
Tinder
Badoo
Lexa
Parship
Pepper
Relationplanet
The research showed that the majority of these websites place cookies on your computer without pardon for advertising purposes. This is not allowed at all according to European privacy legislation (the AVG). Are you also on Facebook or do you have a Gmail account? Then they know immediately that you are 'dating'. Because of this connection, you can already immediately count on even more ads. This kind of information is a perfect example where companies like Facebook are making big money. Advertisers are all too eager to know your relationship status in order to target ads.
Many dating sites have vague privacy statements. Companies like Tinder collect personal information about users in order to resell it to third parties. They don't have to tell exactly what specific information is collected and resold, just what "category" it falls under. Some websites that specifically stood out because of vague privacy statements are:
50Plusmatch
Happn
Paiq
Tinder
Not only are these sites unclear about what information they collect and resell about users, they also install cookies on your computer as soon as you land on their website. This has been prohibited under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) since May 2018. The dating sites of Badoo, Lexa, Parship, Pepper and Relatieplanet also did not come out positively from the survey. With them, too, the privacy statement was so vague that users could not properly assess exactly what information was collected about them.
The only dating site that came out positive was e-Matching. Miraculously, no privacy problems were found with this service.
One positive twist to the story is that some of these dating sites have changed their privacy policies in response to the investigation. 50Plusmatch and Paiq have updated their cookie and privacy statements to be less invasive of users' privacy. However, other dating sites, such as Tinder and Parship, continue to operate undisturbed as before.
It is positive that some Web sites are making an effort to be more privacy-conscious with users' data. Still, it is ultimately your own responsibility to protect your online privacy. You can do this in several ways. It already makes quite a difference if you add some privacy-focused extensions to your browser, adjust your cookies and browser settings and also encrypt your Internet traffic with a VPN. This way, everything you do online is already a lot safer.
This news item can also be found in the files AVG and e-Privacy
