Researchers release personal data of 70k OKCupid users

Danish researchers have released personal information on about 70,000 OKCupid users, including their usernames, demographic information and their answers to questions about everything from sexual desires to drug use to hobbies, Motherboard reports. 

The researchers obtained the data in 2014 and 2015 through an automated scraper. In theory, it was already available to anyone with a free OKCupid account willing to take the time to comb through individual profiles, but other scholars have criticized them for making it available in bulk without any sort of anonymization.

With these details, I roughly estimate I could ~90% accurately connect sexual preferences & histories to real names of >10,000 OkC users.

— Scott B. Weingart (@scott_bot) May 11, 2016

SM