Safety

In what is becoming an all-too-familiar headline, a security researcher has discovered an online database containing sensitive personal information belonging to hundreds of millions of Facebook users. Names, phone numbers and unique users IDs were exposed in the breach.

Bob Diachenko first came across the data on December 14, ten days after it was created, and reported the leak on Comparitech. The trove was available for anyone to access without a password or any other form of authentication. Based on evidence he discovered, Diachenko believes the stolen data is most likely the result of an illegal scraping operation or Facebook API abuse by criminals based in Vietnam. The information contained in the database puts users at risk of multiple digital hazards, including SMS spam and phishing campaigns.

A revealing report published by ProPublica found that Match Group did not conduct background checks on users of their popular free platforms, including Tinder, Plenty of Fish, and OkCupid, leaving their members vulnerable to sexual assault.

Columbia Journalism Investigations analyzed more than 150 incidents of sexual assault among people who met through dating apps over the last decade, ProPublica reported. Most met their matches through Match Group apps. The researchers discovered that registered sex offenders were using Match Group apps like Tinder and went on dates with women who had no idea, because while Match Group conducts background checks for paid apps like Match, they don’t for their free apps.

League Live = Video Speed Dating

Exclusive dating app The League has announced the launch of its newest feature: two-minute live video chats, intended to work like virtual speed dating.

The feature is called League Live, and users can opt in to participate, according to The Verge. It works like this: starting December 1^st, the video dates will begin at 9:00pm on Sundays for those who have opted in, and the app will automatically pair a couple up based on their preferences and location as they do for matches.

Verifying your account on POF.com

POF recently added a new feature that affects all members that use the website to access the Plenty of Fish dating service. Members are now required to verify their account by providing their mobile phone number. When a member logs into the POF.com website they will see the page with the following request:

Please Verify your Account

We need to send you a text to verify that you're human. To help keep your account safe, we'll keep your number in case we need to re-verify you and make sure a stranger isn't trying to login. Don't worry though, that's all we ever use your number for.

So once you enter your number and click the "Get Started" button POF will then send you a text with a code which you enter in Step 2 of the verification process.

Hornet Profile Verification Badge

Image: Hornet

If you’ve ever spoken to someone on a dating app and thought, “This person is too good to be real,” you are not alone... and you might be right. The virtual world is full of scammers and other shady characters, including the notorious “catfish” — a person who creates a fictitious online identity to lure unsuspecting mates on dating services. The ever-increasing popularity of online dating means that catfishing, too, is increasing at an alarming rate, and more and more singles are falling victim to the cons.

Hornet has a solution. In a bid to stop would-be fraudsters in their tracks, the popular gay dating app has announced that will let users earn a badge of authenticity, akin to the blue checkmarks of verified profiles on Instagram and Twitter. Hornet is the first major gay dating app to intoduce a veification symbol to identify genuine users.

Study on Access to Personal Info by Dating Apps

Image: datingroo

Dating app users often don’t realize how much personal information they are giving away just by signing up. But Datingroo, a U.K.-based online dating research company, has released a new study that shows exactly how little privacy most dating app users have.

Datingroo studied the ten most popular dating apps from Tinder to PlentyofFish to eHarmony, examining 45 personal data access points in 13 categories such as precise location, other accounts on the device, network connections, and modification or deletion of the contents on USB storage, and found some surprising results.

Among all the apps, Badoo and PlentyofFish have access to the most data in user’s devices (92% of all access points studied). Combined, they have more than 522 million users worldwide, which means they have access to an enormous amount of information. Coffee Meets Bagel has the fewest users (7 million), as well as the least data access.