Analysis

If the complainant asked your site delete their unique profile, she requested that their particular membership and all their personal data manage end up being permanently erased out-of eHarmony’s servers.

In response in order to her demand, yet not, eHarmony 1st closed otherwise deactivated their own reputation, so it is unreachable so you’re able to potential fits.

Brand new complainant quickly informed eHarmony this was not what she need okcupid hottest. At that time, she read from eHarmony it didn’t permanently delete members’ personal data.

The investigation unearthed that the choice so you can close a free account was not easily accessible to your eHarmony website. Nor is actually here a very clear reason away from just what eHarmony created from the you to definitely title.

eHarmony stated that they anonymizes the information on the closed membership since it eventually did in the fresh complainant’s circumstances, but don’t determine significantly less than what factors it performed very.

Data retention

PIPEDA makes it necessary that teams produce guidance and functions with respect to the brand new storage off personal information, in addition to restriction and you can minimum retention symptoms. Under the law, eHarmony are permitted to retain personal information simply for for as long just like the necessary for the latest pleasure of one’s ways to use it is compiled.

eHarmony stated that how come they deactivated account and you may indefinitely hired the data in place of removing this new profile as well as the guidance inside would be the fact forty % off users reactivate contained in this a two-season months. In case the information is employed, anyone seeking to re-join aren’t inconvenienced by the time-taking activity out-of finishing a different sort of questionnaire.

Recommendations

Within examine, eHarmony is always to offer pages who decide to cancel the account a clear selection anywhere between account deactivation (temporary) and you may account deletion (permanent).

Through the the data, we listed that if 40 % out of professionals will reactivate inactive accounts, then a big part sixty percent dont. Therefore, they might not enjoy the long maintenance of the information.

• Make, apply and improve profiles in the a storage plan through which personal advice from inside the deactivated levels could be erased out-of eHarmony’s machine, removed or anonymized once a fair timeframe;
• Are a merchant account deletion solution; and you will
• Explain to users to their user account profiles how account removal try not the same as membership deactivation, and also make each other possibilities clear and easily available. An explanation of one’s difference between membership deletion and account deactivation should also be created with the standard privacy policy.

Response

Within its reaction, eHarmony affirmed which got taken, or was a student in the whole process of taking, measures to deal with the concerns, including:

• Setting-up a two-12 months maintenance several months private advice your website accumulates out-of the fresh profiles of its provider;
• Taking an obvious and you can efficient procedure to own pages to demand removing of the personal information; and you can
• Getting users having obvious factual statements about the difference between deactivating an account and removing a free account along with information on how a lot of time eHarmony retains information that is personal.

eHarmony and additionally told the Workplace exactly how of course, if it anonymizes users’ analysis, and therefore, essentially, permanently and irreversibly strips every in person idenfiable data regarding user membership. eHarmony confirmed that the complainant’s membership had been anonymized inside style and the pointers are rendered permanently depersonalized.

Completion

Given that eHarmony now offers profiles an obvious option of totally removing their accounts before stop out of a couple of years, we determined that a default retention ages of two years to own dead account is suitable.

In the course of time, we had been happy with eHarmony’s responses. Plus establishing a flat maintenance plan, it has made its privacy controls better to users and increased techniques for speaking about confidentiality questions. Accordingly, the brand new issue are noticed well-founded and you can fixed.