Elite Singles

Warning: *privacy not included with this product

Elite Singles

Review date: Feb. 12, 2021

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Mozilla says

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People voted: Somewhat creepy

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.)

  • 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?

It is unclear whether or not Elite Singles sells user data. Elite Singles collects personal user data for advertising purposes, including interest-based advertising and may share or exchange this with third parties. The dating app says it allows Ve Global, a third party marketing firm, to collect personal data on its users, but it is not entirely clear what data is collected. In addition, Elite Singles uses non-personal, non-identifiable data for analysis purposes (such as Google Analytics).

How can you control your data?

Elite Singles users can request to review or delete their data. The Privacy Policy does not give instructions how to make such a request, though it contains the following email address for questions: [email protected].

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

Average

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?

No

User-friendly privacy information?

No

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? information

No

Encryption

Yes

Unlike most Privacy Policies, Elites Single's Privacy Policy has a section on safeguarding users' data with reference to encryption.

Strong password

Yes

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

Yes

Manages vulnerabilities

Can’t Determine

We were unable to tell if they have a bug bounty program.

Privacy policy

Yes

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? information

Yes

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?

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

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