Tinder accuses dataset creator of violating terms of service

A dataset created by programmer Stuart Colianni created a controversial dataset by scraping 40,000 profile pictures from Tinder without user consent, prompting accusations of privacy abuse.

Colianni scraped 20,000 profile pictures of each gender from Tinder users, primarily in the Bay Area of California, and uploaded the dataset, called "People of Tinder," to Kaggle, a machine learning platform, along with his scraping script.

Colianni's stated purpose was to create a larger, more diverse facial dataset for AI research, citing disappointment with existing datasets. 

However, Tinder accused Colianni of violating Section 11 of its terms of service, which prohibits the use of automated tools to retrieve data from the platform, and requested that Colianni remove the dataset from GitHub and Kaggle.

Colianni admitted scraping Tinder and removed the dataset.

The incident raised concerns about the use of personal data for machine learning purposes, and the ease with which this data can be misused.

News, commentary, analysis 🗞️

• https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/28/someone-scraped-40000-tinder-selfies-to-make-a-facial-dataset-for-ai-experiments/

• https://www.csoonline.com/article/3193837/dataset-of-scraped-tinder-pics-poof-from-kaggle-after-tinder-complains.html

• https://thenextweb.com/news/tinder-photo-dataset-40000-scraped-pics

• https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39778568

• https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetwburns/2017/05/02/tinder-profiles-have-been-looted-again-this-time-for-teaching-ai-to-genderize-faces/

• https://www.huffpost.com/entry/40000-photo-tinder-sweep_n_59052818e4b0bb2d086f0335

• https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4463808/Programmer-admits-scraping-40-000-photos-Tinder.html

• https://www.ibtimes.com/are-your-tinder-selfies-safe-someone-just-harvested-40000-research-2532415

• https://www.wired.it/mobile/app/2017/05/03/ruba-40mila-foto-da-tinder-per-il-riconoscimento-facciale/

• https://www.reddit.com/r/datasets/comments/6z054s/people_of_tinder/