OKCupid Data Leak: Researcher Publish 70,000 User Profiles, Owners Angry [VIDEO]
In a rather bold move, Emil Kirkegaard, a Danish researcher published 70,000 user profiles from popular dating site OKCupid on the Open Science Framework Forum on May 8. The data included the user's names, age, gender, location, as well as the users' sexual preferences.
While the data is public in a sense, the massive leak was nonetheless met with quite a bit of controversy. After all, though the data could be pulled from the dating site without much effort, the compilation of user data was so massive that a number of fellow researchers felt that Kirkegaard's release of the data violated the ethics of research.
Oliver Keyes, a research analyst at the Wikimedia Foundation, was among the data leak's critics. In a blog post, he wrote about his sentiments about the Danish researcher's release of the users' data.
"Yesterday morning I woke up to a Twitter friend pointing me to a release of OKCupid data, by Kirkegaard. Having now spent some time exploring the data, and reading both public statements on the work and the associated paper: this is without a doubt one of the most grossly unprofessional, unethical and reprehensible data releases I have ever seen," he wrote.
"A fundamental underpinning of ethical and principled research - which is not just an ideal but a requirement in many nations and in many fields - is informed consent. The people you are studying or using as a source should know that you are doing so and why you are doing so," he added.
Kirkegaard, for his part, believes that his decision to leak the OKCupid profiles to the public was not unethical at all, considering that the data was available for public viewing in the OKCupid site.
"Some may object to the ethics of gathering and releasing this data. However, all the data found in the dataset are or were already publicly available, so releasing this dataset merely presents it in a more useful form," the Danish researcher stated.
Since the controversy started, however, Kirkegaard has already password-locked the document files involved in the massive leak. He has also denied further reports, stating that he is not very keen on fanning the flames as the controversy continues.
