An EU lawmaker has said that dating app Tinder should be probed by the European Commission as it violates the region’s data protection rules.
The law maker alleged that Tinder uses personal data of users without obtaining “explicit consent”.
Socialist lawmaker Marc Tarabella said in a statement that the app uses unlawful conditions to force users to give their consent for ambiguous clauses that enable it to access personal data even after the closure of their accounts.
Tarabella was quoted by Reuters as saying: "Once you subscribe, the company can do whatever it wants with your data. It can show them, distribute them to whomever or even modify them. The lack of transparency cannot be the rule.”
The lawmaker also alleged that dating app Happn and jogging app Runkeeper have breached EU data protection rules.
Tarabella said: "Tinder is unfortunately far from being the only company that takes advantage, unlawfully, data gleaned. Runkeeper, for example, to record his jogging performance would collect and would transmit user data without their knowledge, even when the app is inactive.
"The same criticism can be made ??to Happn, application of geo meetings which would transmit data to third parties. "
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The Belgian politician was among major European parliament members who had sought for separation of Google’s commercial services from its search engine business.
Tarabella have urged the European Commission to conduct an investigation into these firms and initiate heavy sanctions against companies that use "abusive clauses" for their apps.
A Commission spokeswoman told the publication that the local authorities should enforce EU rules on data and consumer protection.
Tarabella said: "The problem is always the lack of transparency and the notion of consent.”
He added that companies also resort to selling users’ data to third parties without the knowledge of consumers or their consent.
In November 2015, Tinder owner Match Group made its public debut on the NASDAQ stock exchange, with the valuation of the company rising to $3.57bn. The group also owns Match.com, OkCupid and OurTime.
Tinder partnered with mobile security and fraud prevention company TeleSign to introduce two-step verification system that managed to reduced the number of Tinder spambots by 90%.
