Back in 2019, we did a deep dive into what you can do to protect your privacy on dating apps while still matching with people. Now that it’s 2022, we have updated this article with the latest news and tips.
Dating apps are now as much a part of modern courtship as going to the movies or buying flowers. But dating apps like Tinder, Grindr, or Bumble, present significant privacy risks. This Valentine’s Day, take some time to protect your privacy on dating apps.
Online dating is a privacy nightmare because it’s a Catch-22. You are obviously looking to entice someone and therefore want to create a level of intimacy, but you are speaking with someone you have never met. It requires a delicate dance of revealing enough information about yourself to beguile without sharing too much. And you need to accept information from people on the other end of your conversation, hoping they are acting in good faith.
Scammers know this. They have begun hacking these apps or using social engineering to access people’s most sensitive photos or to trick people into sending payments. According to the US Federal Trade Commission, romance scams have been increasing steadily, and over $547 million was lost to these scams in 2021.
Beyond scammers, many of these dating apps use the data you give them to target you with ads. When you consider that hundreds of millions of people use dating apps around the world to meet new people, there is a lot of data to be mined. Furthermore, many dating apps have been less-than-responsible stewards of the data entrusted to them.
But don’t give up on love! (It is Valentine’s Day, after all.) There are ways to limit your exposure online.
What data do dating apps have?
Most dating apps use the data they collect from you to target you with ads. That’s how they can continue operating while offering their service for free. (It’s also why you often can get access to stronger privacy controls if you pay for a subscription to a dating app.)