Coffee Meets Bagel

Warning: *privacy not included with this product

Coffee Meets Bagel

Review date: Feb. 12, 2021

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Mozilla says

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People voted: Somewhat creepy

For online dating done a little differently, there's Coffee Meets Bagel, a dating service founded by three sisters and launched in 2012. The idea behind Coffee Meets Bagel is you don't swipe around looking for matches. Instead, the app uses what they call an "ever-evolving smart algorithm" to send you matches curated to your tastes everyday at noon. It gets a little complicated as men get 21 curated matches (or bagels as they awkwardly call them) and have 24 hours to pass or like. Women get 6 matches of people who have liked them. Or something like that, it's a bit confusing. If putting your profile up for everyone on a dating app to see makes you nervous, Coffee Meets Bagel could be good for you because users can't search your profile out. Only users who have matched with you will be sent your profile to view.

What could happen if something goes wrong?

On Valentine's Day 2019 Coffee Meets Bagel was forced to send out an email admitting the personal information of six million of their users was hacked, stolen, and put up for sale on the dark web. Not at great way to show the love. They did take measures to tighten security and protect their users after the data breach. Just like they changed their requirements forcing users to sign in with Facebook following Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018. Users are still asked to sign in with Facebook and now also have the option to sign in with a phone number. This is good because when you connect a social media account like Facebook to a dating app, both Facebook and the dating app now potentially collect more information together. That's why we recommend users don't link your dating app to Facebook. Another interesting consideration for CMB is the artificial intelligence algorithm they use to match users with one another. While we couldn't tell exactly how their algorithm works, we did find this quote from the CEO interesting, "People, a lot of times, don’t know what they want. They may say they want certain things, but they don't actually want that." That seems to indicate CMB thinks their algorithm will know better than you who you want to date. It's an interesting idea, especially considering they ask for information such as ethnicity and religion that could inject bias into their algorithm.

  • mobile

Can it snoop on me? information

Camera

Device: N/A

App: No

Microphone

Device: N/A

App: No

Tracks location

Device: N/A

App: Yes

What can be used to sign up?

What data does the company collect?

How does the company use this data?

Coffee Meets Bagel does not sell personal information to third parties. While Coffee Meets Bagel has told us in an email that they "purposely don't use [user] data to run targeted advertising", their Privacy Policy states that the company permits third parties to collect personal user information for purposes such as interest-based advertising outside of the Coffee Meets Bagel app.

How can you control your data?

Users’ outside the European Economic Area can request that their account information is deleted and can withdraw their consent for Coffee Meets Bagel to use personal information at any time. Users’ within the European Economic Area can request to access and ask for their data to be deleted. Both can be requested by emailing [email protected]

What is the company’s known track record of protecting users’ data?

Needs Improvement

Coffee Meets Bagel was subject to a massive data breach, included names and passwords of roughly six million users, which the company announced on Valentine's Day 2019.

Can this product be used offline?

No

User-friendly privacy information?

No

Coffee Meets Bagel doesn't have a separate page for their Privacy Policy and instead have it on the same page as their Terms of Service, which felt to us a little like they were burying their Privacy Policy to make it harder for people to find and read.

Links to privacy information

Does this product meet our Minimum Security Standards? information

Yes

Encryption

Yes

Coffee Meets Bagel uses encryption throughout the app. They encrypt all communication and log files.

Strong password

N/A

Password wasn't requires as login happens either via phone or third-party.

Security updates

Yes

Manages vulnerabilities

Yes

Coffee Meets Bagel has a trust and safety team that is responsible for keeping the system up to date on the latest vulnerabilities and reviews new features and systems for potential vectors of attack

Privacy policy

Yes

Does the product use AI? information

Yes

Coffee Meets Bagel uses internal tools and external safety vendors that use AI to monitor for malicious activity. Remarks from Coffee Meets Bagel co-founder & Co-CEO Dawoon Kang are less clear regarding the use of AI for matchmaking: "People, a lot of times, don’t know what they want. They may say they want certain things, but they don’t actually want that." We were unable to tell how their matchmaking AI algorithm worked so we don't have much insight into if there is any bias in the algorithm that could determine your matches. Coffee Meets Bagels does ask for information from users about ethnicity and seems to allow users to filter for it. We don't know if that could create bias in their algorithm or not. It is a question to ask, however.

Is this AI untrustworthy?

Can’t Determine

What kind of decisions does the AI make about you or for you?

Is the company transparent about how the AI works?

No

Does the user have control over the AI features?

Can’t Determine

*privacy not included

Dive Deeper

  • Dating App Coffee Meets Bagel Sends Valentine’s Day Alert About Data Breach
    Fortune
  • What will online dating be like in 2030?
    Mashable
  • 620 million accounts stolen from 16 hacked websites now for sale on dark web, seller boasts
    The Register
  • How Private Is Your Online Dating Data?
    Consumer Reports

Comments

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