Warning: *privacy not included with this product
If your dating tastes lean more towards people 30 - 55 who have a certain level of education, career, work ethic, and earning power, Elite Singles could be the matchmaking site for you. It sounds at tad snooty, and that's exactly what some people are looking for. With over 13 million users worldwide, Elite Singles claims 90% of users are over 30 and 85% of users have a university education. Users don't search the pool of people and pick who they want on Elite Singles like on many other dating apps. Instead the app matches you to people based on a long personality questionnaire that analyzes 29 personality traits (who knew we all had so many personality traits!) and then shoots those matches your way. Elite Singles probably isn't for everyone, but hey, what dating app is?
What could happen if something goes wrong?
Dating apps collect a LOT of personal information on their users. When you connect a social media account like Facebook to that 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. While Elite Singles says they don't "sell" your personal information based on a the legal definition of "sell", they aren't clear on how they might otherwise share or exchange your information. Data collection is pretty common, but you give out a lot more personal information on dating apps like Elite Singles beyond name and location. You also could share your income level, ethnicity, religion, and even your height. Elite Singles hasn't had any data breaches in the past couple of years (yay!), another app owned by Spark Networks (Zoosk) did have a recent data breach (boo!). Which is a good reminder that data shared and stored by a company is never 100% safe. Finally, Elite Singles does use an artificial intelligence driven algorithm to help match you with potential dates. We weren't able to determine if they take any steps to avoid bias in that algorithm, but they do ask users to share their ethnicity and religion, which means bias on those traits could factor into how their algorithm matches you to others. What's the worst that could happen? Elite Singles collects a ton of information on you, Facebook could get access to that information and target you with all sorts of ads for crazy things like conspiracy theories about the Earth being flat and you end up losing touch with reality. Hey, it could happen! (PS. The Earth is round.)
Can it snoop on me?
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?
Yes
Phone
No
Third-party account
Yes
What data does the company collect?
Personal
Gender (required), What someone is looking for in a match (required), Country (required), 10-minute personality questionnaire, including questions on ethnicity, religion, income (required). Preferences, Including level of education, ethnicity, religion, importance of income in a relationship (optional).
Body related
Height (optional)
Social
If you sign in with Facebook or interact with the Facebook plug-in on the dating app, Elite Singles allows Facebook to collect user data from its site. Elite Singles also uses Twitter plug-in. The dating app refers users to the individual platforms' Privacy Policy.
How does the company use this data?
How can you control your data?
What is the company’s known track record of protecting users’ data?
No known incidents for Elite Singles in last 2 years. We did identify a data breach for dating app (Zoosk), also owned by Spark Networks. There is no indication that other dating apps owned by Spark were compromised.
Can this product be used offline?
User-friendly privacy information?
Their privacy policy is relatively jargon free. However, the interesting questions, such as whether or not Elite Singles sells user data, are unclear.
Links to privacy information
Does this product meet our Minimum Security Standards?
Encryption
Unlike most Privacy Policies, Elites Single's Privacy Policy has a section on safeguarding users' data with reference to encryption.
Strong password
Password requirement is for a minimum of six characters and it must contain one number. The password cannot contain "EliteSingle" or match your email address.
Security updates
Manages vulnerabilities
We were unable to tell if they have a bug bounty program.
Privacy policy
Even though Elite Singles is owned by Spark Networks Services, it has a different Privacy Policy than Christian Mingle and JDate. A noteable difference is that Elite Singles has sections on GDPR, whereas those are missing from CM and JDate
Does the product use AI?
We were unable to tell how Elite Singles' artificial intelligence algorithm matched users with others. They do ask for traits such as ethnicity and religion that could potentially inject bias into the algorithm.
Is this AI untrustworthy?
What kind of decisions does the AI make about you or for you?
Is the company transparent about how the AI works?
Does the user have control over the AI features?
Comments
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