Clarifai deletes 3M OkCupid photos after FTC privacy settlement

Clarifai has confirmed it deleted approximately three million OkCupid user photos and facial-recognition models trained on those images, following a U.S. Federal Trade Commission settlement with the dating site over a privacy violation dating back to 2014. The AI company certified its deletion to the FTC on 7 April 2026, according to documents seen by Reuters, and told the office of U.S. Representative Lori Trahan on 16 April that it had deleted any models trained on the data and had not shared it with third parties. OkCupid handed over the user photos, along with location and demographic data, in 2014 without user knowledge or consent. This breached OkCupid's privacy policy, which stated it would not share personal data with parties outside a defined set of business relationships. Clarifai founder Matthew Zeiler contacted OkCupid co-founder Maxwell Krohn in 2014 requesting access to the data, writing "We're collecting data now and just realized that OKCupid must have a HUGE amount of awesome data for this," according to court documents cited by Reuters. The FTC's proposed consent order, announced on 30 March 2026, prohibits OkCupid and its parent Match Group from misrepresenting their data practices for 20 years. The settlement includes no financial penalties because the FTC lacks authority to issue fines for violations of this type under Section 5 of the FTC Act. This case represents the FTC's first Section 5 privacy enforcement action under Chair Andrew Ferguson. Unlike many prior FTC privacy consent orders, this one imposes no ongoing compliance program requirements or affirmative notification obligations on the companies. Clarifai's facial-recognition systems can identify individuals and analyze age, race, and gender from images. The company has contracts with the U.S. military and has received investment from Nvidia.