Dating apps leaving user locations?

BEWARE dating app users! A study has been conducted showing reports of dating apps leaving user locations susceptible to exposure. 

In this current digital age, the use of dating apps amongst single individuals has become ubiquitous. 

From “getting out there,” many people had switched to the convenience of looking for a potential life partner through a swipe of a finger. 

Aside from the convenience it gives, dating apps also provide them with an insight into the person’s preferences and personality. Adding to this is on how they can easily communicate to the person through messaging. 

While the idea of signing up for a dating app might seem like a great idea due to the convenience it provides–a recently published academic paper from Belgian university KU Leuven titled, “Swipe Left for Identity Theft: An Analysis of User Data Privacy Risks on Location-based Dating Apps,” explores a study on how dating apps leaves user location vulnerable to unwanted exposure. 

The study has assessed the 15 most popular location-based dating apps, including Tinder, Bumble, and Grindr.  

Proximity for potential matches

When signing up for a dating app, the site encourages users to give out their location information for the application to find a potential match based on the user’s proximity. 

Through exact distance and places of residence, dating apps typically keep it vague even is the user is not actively displaying their locations.  

This is possible through Trilateration, a process of estimating a specific location by comparing its proximity to three points.

Trilateration is applied to dating apps where users can use location markers (something that the dating app provides) to hone in on a target. For instance, if a stalker is roughly 1.5km away from a user, stalkers are given the choice to move to a different area–whether it would be near or far. 

To find additional references, they can use this to compute the meeting points of those locations.   

Dating apps showing what city a user is living in (even if they choose not to hide their location) wouldn’t matter as several platforms utilize filters to indicate the minimum distance allows for a user to be shown.  

With the study being conducted recorded dating apps Grindr, Badoo, Bumble, Hinge, Hily, and Happn to leave users’ locations vulnerable to exposure.