Introduction
Mobile dating apps have become a popular means to meet
potential partners. Mobile dating application such as Tinder have exploded in
popularity in recent years. Most users on Tinder use/have used Facebook as
their primary way to sign up. By doing this, Tinder automatically takes user
information directly from Facebook, thus saving the need to authenticate the
user and user details.
In this project we aim to identify a Tinder profile on
Facebook using the information that tinder obtains from Facebook. Below is the
information that Tinder takes from a user when they log in for the first time.
As shown a lot of information is requested by Tinder, and all of this actually becomes public via the app. The information taken by Tinder is as follows:
- Public Profile (Name, DP)
- Friend List (To show Mutual Friends)
- Relationship Status
- Interests
- Birthday (To calculate Age)
- Work History
- Education History
- Likes
- Email Address
Personally Identifiable Information (PII) on Tinder Profile
Profile 1Methodology
In this we explain how we went about finding a Tinder
profile on Facebook. As shown in the pictures, we were successfully able to get
PII from a tinder profile.
Initial Approach
First our aim was to check whether it is even possible to match a Tinder profile with its Facebook profile. So to achieve this we started off with a very straightforward approach, that is, we just swiped tinder profiles and looked for that profile on Facebook with whatever PII was available for that profile. Our primary way of searching for this approach was [name] + [school/occupation] and when there are mutual friends first-name was enough.
Following is the data set that we had considered.
Following is the data set that we had considered.
Data Considered and Results for Manual
Analysis
Profiles Searched
|
70
|
Male Searched
|
30
|
Female Searched
|
40
|
Total Found
|
44
|
Male Found
|
21
|
Female Found
|
23
|
Precision For Men = 70%
Precision For Women = 57%
Total Precision = 62.8%
Final Approach
- In this we have made use of Facebook Queries that help in extract information from Facebook. The Queries can be used to extract all kinds of data and can have a number of uses. For us they proved to be the perfect fit since the queries takes in PII of a user and then outputs users matching to the query.Though we have mentioned we have used queries, but as of now Facebook doesn't allow those queries to work, so we kind of reverse engineer the query process, and found out key words that Facebook uses in it's URL to process such queries. Below are some URL examples that are working perfectly fine right now (11/2017).
S.No
|
Desc
|
Query
|
FB
Equivalent
|
1.
|
Search People (M&F) by a
given name
|
https://www.facebook.com/search/str/Darvesh/users-named/intersect/
|
People named "Darvesh"
|
2.
|
Search
specifically Males, by a given name
|
https://www.facebook.com/search/str/Darvesh/users-named/males/intersect/
|
Men named "Darvesh"
|
3.
|
Search
specifically Males, by a given name
|
https://www.facebook.com/search/str/Lana/users-named/females/inter sect/
|
Women named "Lana"
|
4.
|
Search
for a Name, with a given Connection
|
https://www.facebook.com/search/str/garima/users-named/females/str/megha%20verma/users-named/friends/females/intersect/
|
People with friends named "Megha
Verma" who are women named "Garima"
|
5.
|
Search
for a User, by their school name
|
https://www.facebook.com/search/str/nitika/users-named/females/str/IIIT%20Delhi/pages-named/students/intersect/
|
-
|
6.
|
Searching
user friends by given User name and user’s school name
|
https://www.facebook.com/search/str/Nitika%20Saran/users-named/friends/females/str/IIIT%20Delhi/pages-named/students/intersect/
|
-
|
7.
|
Search
a Name, by likes (one or more)
|
https://www.facebook.com/search/str/Sakshi/users-named/females/str/Taylor%20Swift/pages-named/likers/str/Katy%20Perry/pages-named/likers/intersect/
|
Women named "Sakshi" who like
pages named "Katy Perry" and pages named "Taylor Swift"
|
8.
|
Search
a Name, by likes and Schools
|
https://www.facebook.com/search/str/ridita/users-named/females/str/LinkedIn/pages-named/likers/str/Christ%20University,%20Bangalore/pages-named/students/intersect
|
|
9.
|
Search
a Name by Location
|
https://www.facebook.com/search/str/garima/users-named/females/str/dwarka/pages-named/residents/ever/intersect/
|
-
|
10.
|
Search
a Name by Age
|
https://www.facebook.com/search/str/garima/users-named/females/21/users-age/intersect/
|
Women who are 21 years old named
"Garima"
|
11.
|
Search
a Name, by their job position
|
https://www.facebook.com/search/str/Sakshi/users-named/females/str/Manager/pages-named/employees/intersect/
|
-
|
Facebook Search Result For Query 7
Facebook Search Result For Query 8
Now what we did was combine the Facebook Smart Search Query feature with the PII that we were getting from Tinder and used that to identify users.
We made a Tinder Web version using an unofficial Tinder Api which we had built. In that our main goal was to Identify a Tinder user on the spot, so from the api that we had made, we were getting user data in JSON format. It is the same profile that shows up in Tinder using this data, and that data had all the PII that we needed. Further this PII was simply plugged into the Facebook Smart Queries, and the results were furthered checked manually whether a profile that we are looking for has showed up in the first 4 to 6 results. Below are some results achieved from our Tinder Web combined with Facebook Queries.
Now what we did was combine the Facebook Smart Search Query feature with the PII that we were getting from Tinder and used that to identify users.
We made a Tinder Web version using an unofficial Tinder Api which we had built. In that our main goal was to Identify a Tinder user on the spot, so from the api that we had made, we were getting user data in JSON format. It is the same profile that shows up in Tinder using this data, and that data had all the PII that we needed. Further this PII was simply plugged into the Facebook Smart Queries, and the results were furthered checked manually whether a profile that we are looking for has showed up in the first 4 to 6 results. Below are some results achieved from our Tinder Web combined with Facebook Queries.
Tinder JSON Object Obtained Using Our Tinder Api
Profile Matching via our Tinder Web Using PII From Tinder
Profile Matching via our Tinder Web Using PII From Tinder
- Data Considered
Results of Profile Matching
- How we improved profile matching?
Since we are also using pages liked by a user as an input to the query, and we know that with a given name there are not very high chances that a person will also share the same pages liked list (for ex. David likes pages a, b, c, d, now if we can have more Davids, but their like list might not be a, b, c, d, they might have a, f, g, h, but being similar is less possible and also if it happens, results will be narrowed down to a few users). So we went ahead and liked top 100 pages on Faacebook, trying to increase the common interest count that Tinder shows, and then use those in our query to find a user. - Instagram connected to profile?Here we found something interesting, that if you connect your Instagram account on Tinder, it will no longer remain private for a user who opens your account from Tinder. So if somebody were to open your account via Tinder, know that your account pictures won't be private anymore!
Privacy Concerns
- As we have shown we were able to find out a Tinder profile on Tinder with 89% accuracy (given that PII was present, and profiles with PII were about 70%) , that tell that out of 10 profiles 9 can be found.
- Now since Tinder is a dating platform and somebody on it says that yes I am interested and willing to share my info, and yes we agree for some users this might not be an issue, but for those who think safety should matter even on a Dating App, here are a few advice that we can give:
- Read the information that Tinder asks from Facebook when you are logging in via using it. Other method can be to sign up using your phone number (shown below).
- Connect Instagram only if you feel that sharing you account with everybody on Tinder is safe for you.
- Other annoying thing that can happen if somebody finds you on Fb is that you can experience unnecessary direct messages.
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