investigation
Companies behind dating apps need to protect users from predators or intervention from Australian Government

Dating apps are the new hunting ground for sexual predators, with women raped and, in some cases, killed by men they barely know. Now the companies behind the global $4 billion industry are being held to account in Australia, with Federal Communications Minister Michelle Rowland telling firms they need to do more to protect their users or face regulatory intervention. They are facing calls to have better identity verification systems to root out domestic violence and sex offenders. But, on the back of several high-profile hacks that pilfered the personal information of millions of Australians, the dating app companies say they don’t want to hold sensitive information on their clients. Three in four survey respondents to an Australian Institute of Criminology survey said they had been subjected to sexual violence facilitated by dating apps in the five years to 2021. More than three million Australians online date, yet there is little policing on who can join. A spate of high-profile criminal cases, including the alleged murder of a Sydney woman and a serial WA rapist police officer sentenced to 30 years in jail late last year, has brought into sharp focus the dangers users face. Traditional matchmaking agencies say they have seen a resurgence in demand for their services, with women looking for safety in their quest to find love. WA woman Rach Mac, who now runs domestic violence foundation Broken Crayons Still Colour, is just one of the women to have been violently abused by men they met online. When she met her partner on Tinder she could not have imagined the abuse that was to follow. A perforated voice box from strangulation, head trauma causing short-term memory loss, scars all over her body, and fractured eye sockets were some of the injuries she suffered “His go-to was to strangle me, to restrict me and a lot of head trauma,” she said. “I have a lifelong injury from strangulation that will actually probably be what results in my death, because when I get unwell or as I age what allows me to breathe is getting more and more constricted.” Her abuser pleaded guilty to assaulting her and breaching a violence restraining order, as well as spying on her. Now five years later he is back on Tinder, likely looking for his next victim, making Ms Mac “physically ill” fearing other women could now be in harm’s way. His Tinder account was initially taken down when Ms Mac filed a complaint, but just a week later he had a new profile. Ms Mac has had to protect herself by moving 16 times, getting a police- trained guard dog, setting up a duress alarm, and having sensors around her home. She, like many other domestic violence advocates, is calling on dating apps to do more to protect their consumers. “They have a duty of care to their clientele to do their research and due diligence because they’re making money. Even if you’re not a paid subscriber, there’s still advertisements,” she said. “They’re allowing rapists, paedophiles, convicted domestic violence abusers on their dating sites, hence why I felt the need to start a page to do my part to try and keep people safe from these predators.” Calls for more regulation comes on the back of the death of Dannielle Finlay-Jones, who was allegedly murdered by Ashley Gaddie in Sydney in December. They had met on a dating app with Tinder denying it was the app. Mr Gaddie had previously been convicted of stalking, choking, two counts of assault, and has five AVOs from former partners. Since her death, the NSW Government has announced The Right to Ask scheme, which will allow women to check if their partner has been convicted of domestic violence. But that plan, which comes on the eve of a State election in March, also raises issues about who can check on who, and stopping the malicious use of the scheme. After a dating app safety roundtable meeting with State and Territory ministers, industry representatives and anti-violence advocates on Wednesday, Ms Rowland warned that mandatory rules would come into play if dating app executives couldn’t find a way to keep consumers, particularly women, safe. “The apps were left in no doubt that if these kinds of standards we expect as a Government are not demonstrated, we have regulatory and legislative levers available to us,” she said. “A multilayered approach is needed and the Government is examining a range of options to improve the safety of dating apps.” Background checks and ID verification were two of the main safety measures discussed at the meeting — two features that domestic violence and advocacy organisation Full Stop was calling for. “Every single day we’re on the phone supporting people who have been assaulted and abused by somebody that they’ve met online — we know it’s a massive issue,” chief executive of Full Stop Australia Hayley Foster said. “There was a real sense of a willingness for the Australian Government and dating app providers to work together to improve the process and make it easier to run ID checks.” However, there was pushback from industry leaders, with fears the requirements could harm the people they were designed to protect. Requiring identification could affect those who do not want to be outed on same-sex or gender-based dating apps. Ms Rowland raised concerns about background checks providing a false sense of security, given a person might not have been convicted of prior offences. The dating app companies expressed their willingness to engage with new regulations and said while they were happy to adopt further measures, they didn’t want to keep verification data they didn’t need to hold. Despite security concerns, Ms Foster said the industry needed those bottom line requirements as a starting point to keeping consumers safe. “At the end of the day if we don’t have that bottom line, if we don’t know who’s on these apps then it’s really hard to ensure that we can provide a safe space and not have serial criminals on these apps.” With only 1.5 per cent of sexual assaults resulting in a conviction in Australia, Ms Foster said other methods would also need to be used to screen out people. Consumer behaviour and authenticity expert Nathalie Collins is also calling for verified ID, more active monitoring, and better government provided programs around domestic abuse. “ID verification would, in my opinion, be positive — at least you know this person has a government issued ID,” she said. “ID verification, plus a background check, would be helpful in weeding out people with a recorded, verified criminal past who have a history of violent crime,” she said. New powers were recently given to eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant to impose a mandatory code of conduct on the sector if it failed to make apps safer. “We can hold their feet to the fire; I am currently considering mandatory industry codes . . . if their actions don’t meet community standards,” she said. The commissioner has the power to compel information from online dating services to see if they are meeting the Federal Government’s basic online safety expectations. “One of the expectations is that where a service, such as an online dating service, allows anonymous accounts to be created, that the service provider should take reasonable steps to prevent those accounts being used for activity that is unlawful or harmful,” an eSafety spokesperson said. “Examples of steps that a company could take include having measures in place to require verification of identity or ownership of accounts.” Tinder launched its Dating Safety Guide last week, which aimed to address safety concerns while online dating, and educate users on the app’s safety features and how to report incidents of abuse or problematic behaviour. The guide boasted that Tinder had safety features, including photo verification, blocking and reporting users and safety education resources. And it has a “does this bother you?” button if a person receives a potentially offensive message. Bumble also has photo verification, reporting tools, and a safety centre. However, the photo verification on both apps isn’t compulsory and the other features put the onus on the consumer to moderate the safety of the app. Consumers are also having to pay for their safety, with the only way to change your geolocation on Tinder and Bumble by paying for a premium account. In-app video calls, blurring lewd images and detecting fake profiles were steps in the right direction, however, experts said more proactive safety approaches were necessary. “Dating apps wish abusive behaviour didn’t happen, but they don’t see themselves as part of the problem,” Dr Collins said. “Their biggest concern is the legal liability involved in immediate violent behaviour as a result of using the app, as opposed to abusive behaviour which emerges out of the context of a consensual adult relationship. She said dating apps had low barriers to entry. “Their business model is to get as many people using their app for free, then get those people to pay — even if someone is banned off an app it is easy to rejoin under another name and email,” Dr Collins said. It seems to be working for the online dating sector with the industry expected to make more than $4.3 billion worldwide and $71 million in Australia in 2023. Dating app expert Georgia Cooper said it was “insanely easy” for perpetrators to join online dating. “These systems don’t seem incredibly effective and I do think they are putting the onus on the people to police their own app, and lacking in internal functions,” she said. “A lot of prevention is going to have to come from on their end, to pick up what’s happening before it can happen to more and more people.” The AIC survey also found a third of respondents said they had suffered sexual violence at the hands of someone they met on a dating app, with 27 per cent of those reporting incidents of sexual assault or coercion, including drink spiking. Some of WA’s worst predators met their victims online. Adrian Trevor Moore, a former police officer who is now one of the State’s worst rapists, is serving the longest jail term for a sex offender. For nearly 13 years, Moore brutally raped and abused 13 women he had initially charmed on dating websites — and then terrorised — using drugs to take away their ability to stop him acting out his vile fantasies. Finding vulnerable women via dating websites, Moore used his badge and uniform to gain their trust, before breaching it in the most heinous way. He was even wearing that uniform when he raped one of those women, in her own home. Adam Rybicki pleaded guilty to multiple stalking and drug-related offences in 2020 for stalking and harassing 18 young women on apps such as Tinder, Bumble, Snapchat and Instagram. In one sinister message Rybicki told a woman “Your life is f...ed”, later following it up with “you should be killed” and “I’m watching you b...h”. As revealed exclusively by The West Australian, he changed his name to Tom Geoffrey Lewandowski and is now facing 14 more charges under this name, including stalking, making threats and drug-related offences. Alleged “Sugar Daddy” rapist Adam Lusk is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting his victims after meeting them online. In March 2022, he faced 63 new charges, including 11 new counts of stupefying in order to commit an indictable offence. WA Police allege Mr Lusk allegedly slipped ketamine into the drinks of two women he met via the SugarDaddy website, before allegedly raping them. Perth dentist Farzam Mehrabi is accused of drugging and raping 10 women, most of whom he met through Tinder and Bumble. Mr Mehrabi faces a total of 37 charges, including allegedly drugging, throttling and raping two victims while they were on dates at his home and at a bar. In a high-profile Melbourne case, Glenn Hartland was dubbed the “Tinder rapist” after being sentenced to more than 14 years in jail for raping three women and indecently assaulting another. Paula was one of those women and she died by suicide three months before his sentencing. Advocates warned that if more safety measures weren’t enacted women would have to continue to pay the price for their safety. Matchmaker Louanne Ward noticed more women were willing to spend money for her services after having bad experiences on dating apps. “Because of the nature of my business where people have to pay, the chance of someone slipping through the net is rare,” she said. “It’s just too easy to do online — I can’t believe that it’s not mandatory to supply identification before joining a dating app.” Before taking on a new client, Ms Ward takes copies of their identification — a rule advocates desperately want to see on dating apps.

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Companies behind dating apps need to protect users from predators or intervention from Australian Government