The Next Huge Data Breach

I recently watched an episode of “Connected” on Netflix where a user is able to have Tinder send them all of the data they had saved about her. It is absurd how much data they collect. Name, age, pictures — all the normal stuff. After all of that, there are data points that Tinder predicts about you (or gathers) — what time of the day you are most lonely, what type of sexual experiences you are into, and a rating of how “desirable” you are.

While hearing about all of this, I instantly thought of the mess it would cause if a dating application database was leaked. It would be devastating to most users to have those conversations and pictures leaked. In the next couple years I think we will see this. It will be the new age of data breaches — the most personal leak of all time.

It might be a good time to request that these sites delete your data. Depending where you live, you can leverage laws like GDPR to enforce this type of request. Even if an organization says they have deleted your data though, it still may exist. Their process for deletion may be flawed, the information may be protected by a law where it must be help for a certain amount of time, or could be sitting in some archived log files.

Remember, if you are not paying for the product, you are the product.