Staying Safe in the World of Online Dating

It's important to have one specific picture or series of pics that you use for online dating apps only. Doing so will prevent an ill-intentioned date from doing a reverse image search and digging in to your personal life in order to stalk or do harm to you.

Use photos on dating profiles that are not already plastered across your public social media accounts. A reverse-image search can sometimes connect a dating photo to other websites where the same image appears, potentially revealing your full name, employer, social accounts or other personal information.

Do not advertise where you live, work, exercise every morning or routinely spend your evenings to someone you have never met. Look at what is visible in the background. A house number, work badge, school logo, recognizable apartment complex, license plate or neighborhood landmark may reveal far more than you intended.

Interestingly, reverse-image searching works in your favor too. The Federal Trade Commission recommends using it when you suspect a romance scam because a stolen profile image may appear elsewhere under a different name or with completely different information.

Before sharing your digits with the new guy you met online, download a private phone number app. These apps allow you to use your phone as you normally would but assign a private number that can be activated when making certain calls.

There is no reason a stranger needs your primary phone number immediately. Many dating apps allow you to communicate without leaving the platform, and some offer additional tools such as profile verification and in-app calling. Bumble, for example, currently allows voice and video calls between matches without exchanging phone numbers.

If you eventually want to move conversations off the dating app without providing your regular number, a secondary number can create another layer of privacy. Google Voice continues to offer qualifying U.S. users a separate number that can be used for calls, texts and voicemail.

There is another advantage to keeping early conversations inside the dating platform: there may still be a record of the person's account and messages if something goes wrong. Be especially cautious if someone seems unusually anxious to get you off the dating app almost immediately.

While it's crucial to keep your private information discreet, it's equally vital that you do a thorough background check on anyone that you are going to meet through online dating.

Before meeting someone from the internet, do some homework. Search the person's name, look at publicly available social media profiles, verify basic details he has told you and look for inconsistencies. If the dating app offers photo or identity verification, use that feature as another layer of information, not as a guarantee of good character.

A quick video call before meeting can also expose obvious catfishing. Someone who claims his camera never works, repeatedly avoids live conversation or always has an excuse for why he cannot verify who he is deserves additional scrutiny.

Paid background-check and people-search services can provide additional information, but do not treat a clean report as a safety clearance. Records may be incomplete, delayed, incorrectly matched or unavailable. The purpose of checking someone out is to identify contradictions and potential warning signs, not to prove that a person is safe.

Read the article Breaking Down the Background Check to determine which one is best for you. They are worth every penny when it comes to verifying any red flags for your safety in advance.