Nearly a quarter of the permissions dating apps request are unrelated to their functionality and put users’ privacy at risk, NordVPN warned in a press release on Wednesday.
Every Valentine’s Day, dating app downloads increase by 10% in the United States, and many people readily approve permission requests from these apps without considering the implications.
“Dating apps are among the most eager to request access to the devices’ functions that are not needed for their performance,” Adrianus Warmenhoven, a cybersecurity advisor at NordVPN, said.
“Collected data could be used against the user’s interests and lead to privacy issues that are way more serious than targeted ads.”
Dating Apps Collect More Data Than Necessary
Dating apps are among the most “privacy-unfriendly” apps, NordVPN said. The average dating app requests nearly 23 permissions, including access to your location, photos, and videos, with up to six of these permissions not needed for the app’s functionality.
Dating apps are also the number one apps that request “special, dangerous, and biometric permissions, which deal with highly sensitive or personal information and system critical processes,” the press release explained.
On average, Android dating apps seek 11 permissions of this nature, surpassed only by lifestyle apps (14 permissions) and messaging and social networking apps (13 permissions).
On iOS, “health and fitness, social networking, navigation, dating, and lifestyle apps asked for the most permissions on average,” a NordVPN study on app privacy revealed.
In 2020, the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC) found that many popular dating apps breach the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by selling user data to third parties without proper disclosure. This includes sensitive information such as GPS location and sexual preferences.
And in 2021, a Norwegian data privacy watchdog proposed a significant fine against Grindr for illegally sharing sensitive user data.
How to Use Dating Apps Safely
While dating apps are notorious for collecting vast amounts of user data, other apps are also guilty of this practice. In 2023, the Mozilla Foundation found that “products and companies are collecting more personal data than ever before,” exploiting the data for targeted advertising, training AI models without explicit user consent, and even selling personal information to third parties.
NordVPN laid out several recommendations on how to protect your privacy on dating apps:
- Download apps from official app stores to avoid downloading apps that criminals have modified.
- Read and understand the app’s privacy policy before downloading it. If the policy is unsatisfactory, consider using an alternative.
- Be cautious of granting app permissions, especially those that have to do with access to your camera, microphone, storage, location, and contact list.
- Review and disable unnecessary permissions and delete apps that demand too many irrelevant permissions.
- Avoid using social network accounts to log into apps to prevent unnecessary data cross-transfer.
- Limit location tracking to only when an app is actively being used to enhance privacy.
- Delete unused apps to stop them from collecting data in the background.
“Users should always consider whether the app needs certain data to do its job before tapping ‘Accept,’ even if the app is well-known and has a decent reputation,” Warmenhoven added.
For more tips, refer to our guide to dating safely online.
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