The owners of the gay social app Jack’d have reached a settlement with the State of New York over its failure to protect users’ private and nude photos. Online Buddies, Inc., the app’s owner, must pay $240,000 and make substantial security changes.
From NY Attorney General Letitia James’ office: “New York Attorney General Letitia James today announced a settlement with Online Buddies, Inc. (Online Buddies) for failure to protect private photos of users of its ‘Jack’d’ dating application (app), and the nude images of approximately 1,900 users in the gay, bisexual, and transgender community. Although the company represented to users that it had security measures in place to safeguard users’ information, and that certain photos would be marked “private,” the company failed to implement reasonable protections to keep those photos private, and continued to leave security vulnerabilities unfixed for a year after being alerted to the problem.”
Said James: “This app put users’ sensitive information and private photos at risk of exposure and the company didn’t do anything about it for a full year just so that they could continue to make a profit. This was an invasion of privacy for thousands of New Yorkers. Today, millions of people across the country — of every gender, race, religion, and sexuality — meet and date online every day, and my office will use every tool at our disposal to protect their privacy.”
Read the NY Attorney General’s full press release here.
