A French data protection agency has issued a warning to eight dating companies, following an investigation into the collection of user data.
The Commission Nationale de L’informatique et Des Libertés (CNIL) said it carried out an investigation into thirteen dating sites, including IAC-owned Meetic, Attractive World and JDream.
A CNIL spokesperson told AFP: “Most of these sites offer their users very targeted searches based on their social community, their religious or ethnic (identity), where they live, how they look, their sexual practices and their political opinions.”
However the watchdog said the sites did not explicitly ask users whether they were happy for such sensitive data to be collected and stored.
The sites that were named included: Meetic, Attractive World, Adopte Un Mec, Easyflirt, Forcegay, Mektoube, JDream, Feuj World, and Celibest.
The CNIL has recommended that companies add a tick box to their sites, that users can click to confirm they are happy for sites to collect and share their data.
The watchdog also said it wants French sites to improve their methods for deleting the data of former users, and those who have been inactive for a long time.
Alexandre Lubot, the CEO of Meetic Group, who were targeted as part of this investigation, said: “As leader of the category, we always take security and safety of our consumers very seriously. We welcome CNIL’s feedback. We have and will continue to work with them.”
These sites have now all been warned about the new consumer protection measures the CNIL wants introduced, and will not be punished if them implement the changes within three months.