The old adage you shouldn't write anything down that you wouldn't be happy to see on the side of a bus is increasingly important in a time where the Internet never forgets.
In the case of Tinder, you might think your drunken sexts disappear when you shamefully close the conversation the next morning, but the company is actually keeping a record of everything.
Not just your activity on the app, it turns out, but activity onto unlinked apps too.
This was what journalist Judith Duportail set out to prove in a Guardian article titled, "I asked Tinder for my data. It sent me 800 pages of my deepest, darkest secrets."
Duportail explained how she enlisted the help of a privacy activist to get Tinder to disclose all the data they had compiled on her:
"Some 800 pages came back containing information such as my Facebook "likes", my photos from Instagram (even after I deleted the associated account), my education, the age-rank of men I was interested in, how many times I connected, when and where every online conversation with every single one of my matches happened…the list goes on," she writes.
Like other big data companies Tinder promises in their privacy policy that your personal information and communications "will always remain secure" but admits they may be used for targeted advertising.
This story originally appeared on Esquire.co.uk.
* Minor edits have been made by the Esquiremag.ph editors.
