Use photo editing apps to blur the backgrounds in your pictures and make sure you obscure the faces of family members or friends, too. We asked dating experts and people who actively use dating apps to share their advice. No matter which platform you choose, the goal is to make it work for you. However, survey respondents who relied only on free platforms were about 10 percent more likely to report encountering fake profiles or receiving unsolicited sexually explicit messages. Starting to date again can feel like a big step, especially if it has been years since you were last on the dating scene. Today, many older adults are turning to online dating to meet new people, whether they’re looking for companionship, a serious relationship or simply someone to share experiences with.
For these reasons, if you use a dating app, you need to be aware of the risks. As generative AI tools proliferate, verifying what’s real online is getting harder. So take things slowly, check details in different places, and – by far the most important step – avoid anything that turns a romance into a money request, no matter how infatuated you might be. While AI makes romance scams more convincing, effective defences do exist.
Use reverse-image searches which can expose stolen or synthetic photos. A http://www.best-dates.com/ genuine person usually has a broader, consistent digital footprint beyond a single curated profile. Don’t cave into early pressure to move off-platform, and treat this as a potential red flag. A simple face-swapping or voice-cloning tool can be persuasive over a short call.
Senior Writer, Security
For example, if you click on a link that you think is about safaris in Africa, but instead you’re taken to a clickbait-style page about celebrity weight loss or a “where are they now? The real risk is that flashing your wealth or properties may attract those with intentions to steal them and possibly harm you. Like in the real world, you would avoid putting your wealth on blast to avoid unnecessary attention.
Turn Off Location Tracking
In 2018, Grindr did the unspeakable when they released the HIV status and physical locations of their users and shared this till 2020. Here is a quick list of our recommended tips for a safe online dating experience. Join us as we dive deeply into online dating, its risks, and the best tips to stay safe while you find your perfect match. You’ll find people ranting, raving, asking for advice, giving advice, while others are showing empathy and sending some virtual love to the people who need it. You don’t need a Reddit account to browse these spaces, but, you do need one to post or participate in the discussions.
Tips For Keeping Yourself Safe While Dating In The Digital Age
A third of adults surveyed by McAfee received a fake “exclusive” or “invite-only” dating app invitation, and 14 percent signed up and shared personal or payment information. And Tinder clones accounted for around half of all malicious app activity, McAfee found. Between Dec. 1, 2025 and Jan. 22, 2026, 78 percent of all detected fake dating app installations were fradulent versions of Plenty of Fish. Online dating actually began in the 1990’s with the website Match.com. As the internet progressed, social media developed, and more and more households gained internet access, online dating became more prevalent. Importantly, the romance scammers’ toolkit has changed in recent years.
Finding their victims online through various platforms, romance scammers accelerate intimacy, often expressing strong feelings unusually early. Any dating site that charges you money or their purchasable “credits” to talk to people is a scam, and you should avoid them. While in-app purchases are not unnatural for dating apps, the above description is what you should look out for. For the dating apps to perfectly match you to the best matches within your area, they need your location data. While this can be a great way to enjoy the app and its services truly, it can be very risky, considering what Grindr was caught doing in 2020. These are the most popular dangers of using online dating platforms; let’s discuss how to avoid them before going into detail.
Internet security software guards your devices and data and blocks common threats like viruses and malware (plus complex ones like spy apps, “cryptolockers” and XSS attacks). As with all operating systems and apps, it’s essential to keep your antivirus updated to stay ahead of the latest cyberthreats. Romance scams rely on a small number of psychological levers, applied repeatedly.
Trust your instinctsIf something feels off, slow down and talk with a trusted friend or family member before sending money or information. The Tuolumne County Sheriff’s tips related to online dating and below that for blind dates from law enforcement are below. Look out for emotionally charged, high-pressure, or time-sensitive requests from online dating partners, too. Making small, yet high-pressure, demands that escalate quickly is a way for a scammer to test or weaken your boundaries, making you more likely to cave to their demands. Matthew Seymour, an online dating expert at Healthy Framework, told me it’s a good idea to view your profile from a different perspective. Schorn has written extensively about ways to recover from abusive relationships, offline and online.
So, we evaluated how long sign-up took, how detailed profiles needed to be, and how intuitive filters and messaging tools felt. If avoiding a large age gap is important to you, a site designed for adults 50 and older may be a better fit. Discover 110+ questions to ask a girl to get to know her on a deeper level. Explore flirty, funny, personal, and emotional questions for meaningful dating conversations. Join a diverse community of men and women, and find a match based on your interests, values, and goals. Search for people by profile preferences with the help of virtual discovery.
Early reporting can reduce losses and help authorities disrupt larger networks. Victims may be encouraged to invest “together” or are shown screenshots of supposed past profits. Because the scam is framed as a shared future rather than a request for cash, it can go unrecognised. While our tips apply to people of all genders, women face considerably larger risks. As such, we advise that women take better precautions, adhere to our outlined tips, and follow them without fail.
This leads to the false perception that you’re experiencing a unique nightmare, when in reality you’re probably one of many. Adults ages 50 and older are five times more likely to use Match than Tinder, per Pew Research Center. Still, choosing the right dating site depends on your goals, comfort level and budget. Ease of use was one of the most heavily weighted factors in our testing.
- Developers are constantly working to make products safe, monitoring the latest threats and rolling out security patches in case of vulnerabilities in their software.
- That means about 1 in 5 people are taken advantage of in this manner.
- Several participants said the paid versions helped them find higher-quality matches more quickly.
- If you spend more time talking to the person, there’s a chance some inconsistencies will surface.
Other forms of malware deny you access to your personal data by overwhelming your system or simply deleting files, so be careful. With up to 60% of people using mobile devices for shopping and finding information online, instead of a desktop, it’s important that they are secured correctly. These measures will reduce the likelihood of a cyberattack or your personal data being stolen by hackers. Multifactor authentication decreases the likelihood of a successful cyberattack.
Malware causes damage – such as disrupting how your device operates, stealing your personal data or allowing unauthorized access to your machine. This usually requires some action on your part, but there are also drive-by downloads, where a website attempts to install software on your computer without asking for permission first. Think carefully before visiting a new website or downloading anything onto your device, and only download content from trusted or official sources. Regularly check your download folders and if unknown files appear on your system (potentially, from a drive-by), delete them immediately.
All of the dating sites in this review offer free versions, but Match is the only platform that consistently provides a trial period for its paid plans. This is a perk for serious daters who want to try out paid features before committing. The trial lasts three days, giving users a brief window to explore Match’s premium features before committing.
These files can also be obtained with the use of malware, which is why the use of antivirus cannot be overemphasized. A good start for a background check is Googling their names to see if they have any other information on the internet. You could also try the Google reverse image search, which will bring up any other place the picture has been used or related images.
Screenshot the profile, block the person on all platforms, and then circle your proverbial wagons and tell your community what happened. Talking to people you trust about what happened to you can help you recover from a bad experience. No matter what you’re looking for in a partner, there are dating apps designed to meet your needs. The diversity of choice is both a blessing and a curse, as research shows that dating apps require massive amounts of personal data to function. Some sites require a mutual match before users can message each other. Once matched, reviewing the person’s profile and referencing shared interests is an authentic way to start the conversation, dating experts say.
One way to do this is to run a comprehensive background check on your would-be date. NordVPN boasts a large server base, allowing it to serve users from various countries. So, you can get protection from hackers, scammers, and data thieves wherever you are. You can also leave out your sexual orientation and preferences, depending on your location and the laws attached to them.