How Dating Apps Could Compromise Your Financial Security

Online Security Software Companay, Direct ID, Creates Fake Propfile on Tinder™ to Study Identity Protection

Meet Martha Smith:

She’s twenty-five years old and she has a degree in Engineering from the University of Edinburgh. Her music tastes are wide-ranging, taking in everything from Taylor Swift to AC/DC. She’s an avid reader, dividing her literary affections between Stephanie Meyer’sTwilight series and Homer’s Iliad. She’s single. She’s on Tinder™.

She also doesn’t exist.

The people at Direct ID invented the character of Martha following the success of a YouTube video they created that played off the old adage, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”. As with the video, the goal was to highlight how easy it is for anyone to fake an online identity, and how fraudsters can use such identities to mine the personal details of their unsuspecting victims.

Having created a Facebook profile for Martha in a matter of minutes, filling in details of her age, background and interests, Direct ID simply connected the profile to Tinder™ and started to look for matches. Over a one-week period, there were 250 right swipes indicating a “like” on a user’s profile, 200 matches, and engagement with over 10% of the matches.

The aim was to encourage the respondents to reflect on the types of information they share on Tinder™ and the level of trust they associate with online dating. Generally speaking, users demonstrated some awareness of the risks involved in Internet dating, but many appeared to have given little thought to the matter, while a significant number seemed accustomed to what they perceived as the inherent insecurity of online identity. Even amongst the more cautious matches, there was a resignation that, no matter how careful you are, being “catfished” will be a possibility in online dating.

At the conclusion of the experiment, Direct ID put together an infographic of their data finding that most Tinder users are unafraid of the possibility of catfishing, likely because they trust themselves to figure out who is fake or they inherently accept the risks involved in online dating. Those who were more aware of catfishing took particular steps to verify the person on the other end of the conversation usually through social media, such as asking for Snapchat usernames or Facebook names. In other cases, users asked for a phone number.[su_box title=”About Direct ID” style=”noise” box_color=”#336588″]DirectID is most powerful online verification and data solution for customer onboarding, assessment and underwriting, we take the trust and assurance in bank-verified identities and real-time financial profiles and match it with credit and bureau data, so you can make more accurate and instant decisions.DirectID is a plug and play cloud service that embeds directly in your process seamlessly for a frictionless user experience that enables the next generation of online consumer finance applications in retail banking, lending, mortgages and payments.[/su_box]