CU-Boulder Study: Some Dating Websites Don’t Remove GPS Data From Photos
Going on a blind date?
You may feel comfortable sharing some basic information about yourself on dating websites; but what about your location? A new study shows you may be giving away your location without even knowing it.
A group of University of Colorado Boulder’s Leeds School of Business students found that 21 of 90 dating websites in their test group did not properly remove location data from pictures uploaded by users.
Global Positioning System (GPS) chips are embedded in many cell phones and cameras. Common tools can be used to derive a photo’s camera type, date of capture, whether the picture has been altered, and GPS coordinates of where the photo was taken.
The CU-Boulder student researchers say this gap in privacy leaves females users especially vulnerable to online predators.
The study found that larger dating websites such as Match.com and PlentyofFish.com properly remove location metadata from user profile pictures. However, 23% of the 90 websites were found to leave metadata attached to the profile photo.
Twelve of the 21 websites were run by a single Canadian company, SuccessfulMatch.com.
Associate Professor Kai Larsen says, “While we were pleased to see such a high level of responsible behavior by online dating companies, an online predator would require no more than one website to act irresponsibly.”
The websites found not to remove location metadata were contacted by the group on Dec. 29, 2011. The Leeds School team has since worked with several of those dating website companies to ensure that location metadata is removed before the survey results were publicly announced.
“It was clear that some companies did not know about this issue,” Larsen said. “The feedback ranged from appreciative to reluctantly removing the metadata to no response.” Several of the companies immediately reported that they were taking action to resolve the issue, including SuccessfulMatch and the companies behind CatholicSingles, DeafSinglesMeet and MeetingMillionaires.
“If people are worried about their existing profile, they can contact their dating website(s) and ask whether the site removes the information,” Larsen says.
Larsen says using a digital camera as opposed to a phone camera won’t necessarily ensure your safety. “It will reduce the probability that your pictures have GPS coordinates, but not eliminate it,” Larsen says. “It is becoming more common for digital cameras to have GPS chips.”
If you want to see if an existing photo has metadata, use this picture metadata viewer to check.
Dating websites that did not remove location metadata from photographs during the 2011 fall semester class’s research period were the following:
Agematch.com Bikerkiss.com Casualfriends.com Catholiccupid.com Catholicsingles.com Churchfriends.com Deafsinglesmeet.com Interracialmatch.com Jromances.com Largeandlovely.com Latinfriends.com Ldate.com Matemakers.com Meetingmillionaires.com Militaryfriends.com Millionairematch.com Seniorscircle.com Sexsearch.com Singleparentmatch.com sugardaddyforme.com Passionsearch.com
To read more about the group’s findings and see if your dating website is on the “honor roll”, click here.
