Clarifai says it has deleted nearly 3 million OkCupid photos and any facial-recognition models trained on them, weeks after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission settled with OkCupid and Match over the transfer of user data.

What happened

The FTC's March complaint says OkCupid gave Clarifai access to nearly 3 million user photos in September 2014, along with demographic and location data, after Clarifai asked one of OkCupid's founders for large datasets. The agency says OkCupid's founders were financially invested in Clarifai, no formal agreement governed the transfer, and users were neither told nor given a way to opt out.

Reuters reported on April 20 that Clarifai certified the deletion of the photos to the FTC on April 7 and later told Rep. Lori Trahan's office it had also deleted models trained on that data. OkCupid and Match did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement, and Clarifai was not named as a defendant.

Why it matters

The case is a useful marker for AI training-data accountability. The central verified facts are not about a new product launch, but about old consumer images being reused for facial-recognition development without clear consent. The FTC's proposed order bars OkCupid and Match from misrepresenting how they collect, use, disclose, or protect personal data in the future.

That still leaves a narrower outcome than many privacy critics wanted. The settlement announced in March did not include a monetary penalty, even though the complaint describes years of concealment around how the photos were shared.