Love Apptually is a documentary by Director Shalini Kantayya (Coded Bias and TikTok, Boom).
Dating apps collect a treasure trove of personal data about users and raise a range of concerns and opportunities for responsible technology issues related to data protection, consumer protection, opaque recommender systems, transparency and trust and safety initiatives which have implications for technology-facilitated gender-based violence and online gender-based harassment and abuse.
It is currently estimated that 380 million people use dating apps globally.
Love Apptually is a documentary by Director Shalini Kantayya (Coded Bias and TikTok, Boom). The documentary follows a French journalist seeking to uncover the hidden mechanics behind Tinder’s algorithm, exploring how technology has disrupted the primordial human quest for partnership.
AWO supported the documentary Love Apptually with its impact campaign in Australia, focused on digital policy. We created a toolkit and supporting materials for the film’s website and advocacy campaign.
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Privacy
Dating apps engage in an excessive collection of data (including religion, images, sexual preferences, etc.) and non-transparent data sharing. Users also do not currently have a right to request erasure of personal data in Australia and are not generally aware about their right to request access to their personal data.
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Online safety
Discrimination and risks to users’ online safety: The same groups of people who experience higher rates of discrimination offline also deal with higher rates of abuse when they are dating online - including women, racial minorities, LGBTIQ+ individuals, people with disability, culturally and linguistically diverse people, young people and new daters.
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Algorithmic transparency & recommender systems
Dating apps use algorithms that rank and filter users based on their predicted desirability. There is very little information available, however, about how users are matched and how the algorithm is used. Users on most major dating apps are limited to profiles displayed by opaque recommender systems. There is limited public information available on match algorithms, including the extent to which they prioritise match rate over user engagement.
Our work highlighted existing gaps in our legal and policy frameworks in Australia in relation to protecting individuals from harms on dating apps.