The Federal Trade Commission has accused OkCupid of misleading users about how their data was shared with a facial recognition company. According to the FTC complaint, OkCupid provided nearly three million user photos to Clarifai in 2014, along with demographic and location information, without formal agreements or user consent.

Despite OkCupid's claims that it had no commercial relationship with Clarifai, the FTC found that the data transfer occurred because OkCupid's founders had financial investments in the company. The dating platform's CEO facilitated the arrangement after Clarifai's CEO requested access to large photo datasets. OkCupid's leadership, including its President and CTO, were directly involved in enabling the data transfer.

The FTC alleges OkCupid made false statements to users about its data practices, claiming it never shared information with the facial recognition firm. Clarifai used the photos to develop technology that could identify age, sex, and race of detected faces, which it reportedly offered to sell to foreign governments and police departments. The settlement addresses these deceptive practices and aims to prevent similar data sharing without proper consent.