The Guardian view on dating apps: users must own their love lives | Editorial

The wealth of information many dating apps request may help to home in on the perfect match. But users should be able to find out what is known about them and how that sensitive information is being used

In the real world, asking someone out is sometimes fraught with awkwardness and tinged with the prospect of possible humiliation. One of the successes of the dating app Tinder was that it revealed only that a user liked another when the feeling was mutual. The wealth of information that such software requests may help to home in on the perfect match, but it also raises important questions over how the data is stored and what rights one has over it. Very little, if the case we reported earlier this week is anything to go by. In that story it took months for a journalist to extract her Tinder data. More than 800 pages of her most intimate life details – volunteered when using the dating app – tumbled out.

In a world where personal data is increasingly shared and manipulated, there is an increasing risk that it might leak. The European Union, to its credit, understands that individuals might object to the way a tech company deals with their personal data. The EU’s general data protection regulation (GDPR) sensibly attempts to strengthen a user’s control over their data: in certain instances, companies are required to get explicit consent for how they use data. Fines for violations will be steep: up to €20m (£17.5m). It also grants users access to their personal data. This is important: as our story points out, Tinder shares personal information with other tech giants which then use it to build a picture about users.

The personal data affects who you see first on Tinder but it can also be used to decide what job offers you have access to, or how much you will pay for car insurance. We found that Tinder only disclosed what it wanted to. Crucially, the company did not say how “attractive” the reporter had been rated – nor explained how this metric had been calculated. The Silicon Valley firm argued that as the data was always in the US, it had no legal duty to give her anything. This is wrong morally, if not in law.

In effect, US big tech is engaging in jurisdictional arbitrage – taking advantage of the discrepancies between competing regulatory systems – to shelter what it does with personal data from oversight. US firms are not processing data in Europe for fear of falling under stricter EU regulations – something that became obvious after Google found itself liable for data-handling in Spain, a case that led to the landmark “right to be forgotten” ruling. The GDPR is supposed to level up protections; but one of Donald Trump’s first acts was to say he would give non-US citizens less data protection than US ones despite previous assurances from Washington. The result is the growth of a US-centred tech economy where sensitive data is shared with little accountability.

In the case that the Guardian highlighted it took a lawyer, a technologist and a reporter to pierce the corporate veil and work out where personal data was processed. It’s a global issue: Russia has told Facebook it would block access to the social network unless it stores the personal data of Russian citizens on its soil. Britain’s new data bill, supposed to incorporate the GDPR, looks badly drafted. A concern is that UK regulators will simply take tech giants at their word. We are heading to a society where personal data is ever more influential. But its collection, storage and aggregation remains opaque. Shielding it impinges on people’s right to make decisions for themselves and ultimately restricts their individualism.

Contributor

Editorial

The GuardianTramp

Related Content

Article image
The Guardian view on a trustworthy web: it’s up to us | Editorial
Editorial: Global internet companies have become a sophisticated and target-driven industry. Sir Tim Berners-Lee is right to warn about their power but not entirely right about what to do about them

Editorial

15, Mar, 2017 @6:44 PM

Article image
Facebook owner Meta fined €1.2bn for mishandling user information
Penalty from Ireland’s privacy regulator is a record for breach of EU data protection regulation

Dan Milmo and Lisa O'Carroll

22, May, 2023 @6:39 PM

Article image
The Guardian view on digital giants: they farm us for the data | Editorial
Editorial: We are neither the customers nor even the product of companies like Google, but we turn our lives into the knowledge that they sell

Editorial

18, Jun, 2017 @6:04 PM

Article image
The Guardian view on big data: the danger is less democracy | Editorial
Editorial: The information gathered about us by the internet giants makes our political system vulnerable to new forms of manipulation

Editorial

26, Feb, 2017 @7:44 PM

Article image
The Guardian view on internet privacy: technology can’t fix it | Editorial
Editorial: ‘This changes everything’ was a marketing slogan that turned out to be true. So how should we live in the changed world?

Editorial

13, Jan, 2017 @6:37 PM

Article image
Five dating app dilemmas answered by experts
Striking a balance between protecting your data, ensuring your personal security and getting the most out of dating apps can be tricky. Here’ some advice on the dos and don’ts

Kate O'Flaherty

10, Jul, 2022 @3:00 PM

Article image
Facebook refuses to promise GDPR-style privacy protection for US users
Firm working on version of EU data protection law but Mark Zuckerberg stops short of promising all changes will apply to US users

Alex Hern

04, Apr, 2018 @9:44 AM

Article image
EU: data-harvesting tech firms are 'sweatshops of connected world'
Data protection supervisor lambasts companies’ deluge of ‘take it or leave it’ privacy emails ahead of GDPR

Samuel Gibbs

02, May, 2018 @10:04 AM

Article image
EU agrees draft text of pan-European data privacy rules
New rules will strengthen European citizens’ privacy protections, while a controversial proposal to raise ‘age of digital consent’ to 16 was devolved to member states

Samuel Gibbs and agencies

16, Dec, 2015 @11:30 AM

Article image
German regulator orders Facebook to restrict data collection
User consent will be required before combining WhatsApp and Instagram account data

Alex Hern

07, Feb, 2019 @12:41 PM