What Personal Information Does Tinder Collect, and How Does It Use It?

Tinder is the most popular mobile dating app. One of Tinder's latest features, which continues to maintain its leadership in the dating apps rating, is quite peculiar: the user enters data about the meeting's location with their "match," and the application starts tracking one's location. If there is a threat to the user's safety, they must press the panic button, and the police, guided by GPS, will promptly respond to the signal. On the one hand, it is a significant advantage; on the other hand, there is no privacy in Tinder.

What information does Tinder collect about users?
Tinder's privacy policy states that the minimum set of data collected includes username and password and "some basic information necessary for the service to work" – age and gender are examples of such information. The rest of the personal data is provided at the request of the user.

When connecting paid services and making payments within Tinder, users need to indicate bank card number and "other financial information." Besides, the company reserves the right to "process your chatting with other users and the content you post," citing the Tinder services' need to function properly. In fact, it is the reading of user correspondence.

Tinder's services also save information about the devices you access, your Internet connection, and save cookies. Still, this can be disabled if the browser supports this function or a particular extension is available.

How does Tinder use the data it collects?
The data is collected "for security purposes and to provide advertising that may interest the user." Thus, the fact of collecting user data for the purpose of selling it to third parties is not denied.

Who does Tinder share user information with, and how does it threaten users?
So who are these "third parties" with which Tinder trades user data? We are talking about advertising networks of Google, Facebook, and other corporations that specialize in targeted advertising. Of course, the advertising business is interested in as much information as possible about users, including their intimate preferences and sexual orientation.

Tinder provides Facebook and Google with highly confidential data. Many users indicate in their profiles such things that are not customary to tell to the general public.

Even though these corporations are limited by laws on non-disclosure of users' data, the information they collect still leaves them with a wide field for manipulating people's behavior, even through advertising.