Privacy Tips for Online Dating

Finding love in this digital era can be tough as traditional methods don’t work anymore. Everyone is busy on their gadgets, and it’s so hard to find time to socialize or even hang out. But this digital era has its solution to this problem, and that’s through social media and to be more specific, dating apps. Now you can meet anyone you would like to from any part of the world. Despite this being a good thing, online dating has a lot of security and privacy challenges which have proven hard to find legitimate love. But worry not, with the following privacy tips, you will be safe and have a smooth online dating experience.

Choose your dating service wisely

Much like before signing to any online service, do extensive research and always read reviews about what other users say. This scrutiny will help you know if the service prioritizes your security and privacy and also has countermeasures to deal with breaches and other online threats that are after your data.

Avoid oversharing your Personally identifiable information (PII)

This may sound a little ironic, but don’t overshare your personal details even in online dating platforms. Oversharing your PII won’t guarantee that you will find a perfect match. The more information you give out, the higher the chances that it will be linked to you and be used for identity theft and even blackmail you. Keep in mind that dating services use the internet and no matter how secure they are, a breach may occur someday. Only give out necessary information such as your first name only – many individuals may have your first name, and this is good for privacy.

Avoid public Wi-Fi

Free WIFI gives you the alternative to do almost anything that strains your data plan. As much as this is a great deal, public Wi-Fi is not very secure, and because everybody can connect to it, they are many threats lurking as malicious actors wait to pounce on unsuspecting users. With just simple tools and techniques such as eavesdropping, snooping and spoofing, malicious actors can access any information they want from public WIFI. And if you access your dating service from free public Wi-Fi, malicious actors can gain access to your data, and then they might impersonate you and wreak havoc under your profile – identity theft.

Use security measures available on online dating services

Many online dating services have put up security mechanisms that are meant to protect users. These measures might range from turning off your locations, to blocking individuals. So, before you start engaging anyone in these platforms, take a tour on the security and privacy settings page.

Also, always stick to using the dating sites messaging systems for a while until you’ve known/met the individual before switching to other popular messaging services. This ensures that you avoid stalkers and blackmailers.

Be careful about what you communicate

In conjunction with avoiding oversharing your PII, when messaging a love interest, be careful not to slip up and share sensitive information. You might not know if your love interest is a malicious actor and sharing too much information will put you at risk of blackmails, identity theft and even fraud.

Also, if you will be tempted to share your email, create another disposable email which is not related to your main email. By doing this, you will avoid Spam and other unhelpful notifications from blowing up in your main emails.

Use a VPN – IPBurger VPN

A VPN is the ultimate privacy tool, and it even protects you on public Wi-Fi. IPBurger VPN uses best in class encryptions- the AES 256 bit standard to protect your internet traffic from prying eyes such as malicious actors, your ISP and other third parties. Your internet traffic is tunneled through a secure server until it reaches its destination.