While Tinder allows you to find love in the digital age, it also poses a risk to your privacy and safety. In our analysis of Tinder, we asked ourselves some crucial questions like, how private is Tinder? And, is Tinder safe?
Tinder collects and stores a lot of personal information when you use it. And, with a history of poor security, there’s a possibility this data could fall into the wrong hands. There’s also a safety risk that comes with using Tinder; cybercriminals can easily lure you with catfishing schemes, and stalkers can gather information from your profile.
Here are some ways to protect your privacy and use Tinder safely.
- Give out minimal private information on your profile.
- Refrain from sharing personal or financial information with your matches on Tinder
- Don’t link your Tinder and social media accounts.
- Use a VPN to encrypt your traffic. A VPN doesn’t only make up for Tinder’s weak security, it also allows you to use the app if you’re in a country where access has been blocked.
Continue reading to learn more about protecting your privacy on Tinder.
Tinder is the most popular dating app in the world; it has been downloaded over 530 million times and has an estimated 75 million users. But is Tinder safe?
Tinder has experienced some major security incidents that have exposed its poor security. For example, in 2020, hackers leaked more than 70,000 photos of women on Tinder. The app is also rife with catfishing and other scams.
While it allows you to connect with people in the same geographical area, it’s essential to know how to protect your privacy on Tinder. We’ve explored Tinder’s settings, combed through its privacy policy, and compiled a list of practical ways to protect your privacy. This comprehensive guide covers everything you need to know about using Tinder privately and safely.
Managing Your Privacy on Tinder
We categorize our tips for managing your privacy on Tinder into three sections:
- How to set up a private Tinder profile
- How to swipe for matches privately on Tinder
- Chatting safely on Tinder
Follow the steps below to ensure you’re protected at all times when using Tinder. Given Tinder’s history of breaches and questionable security, we recommend using a trusted VPN like NordVPN. A VPN hides your location and ensures hackers and other third parties can’t see what you’re doing on Tinder.
Take advantage of NordVPN’s free trial to enjoy the service for 30 days at no cost!
How to Set Up a Private Tinder Profile
Your Tinder profile provides a peek into your life and personality. It’s all that potential matches have to go on when deciding whether to swipe right or left. As such, it’s important to make your profile appealing and accurately reflect who you are. At the same time, it shouldn’t reveal too much personal details.
Here are some tips on how to create a private and attractive Tinder profile.
1. Log in to Tinder with your phone number
When you download and open the Tinder app or go to the Tinder sign-up page on its website, you can log in using your Google, Apple, or Facebook accounts.
Using a social media account to log in may seem appealing, but this gives Tinder additional personal information about you. Tinder usually collects basic profile information from your social media page and adds it to your profile.
To avoid compromising your privacy, we recommend choosing “Log in with phone number.” If you’d rather not share your regular phone number with Tinder, consider getting a virtual phone number or a second SIM. Logging in with a phone number allows you to remain anonymous on Tinder. You get to pick a nickname or pseudonym to protect your identity.
2. Use real but not revealing pictures
It’s important to be selective with the pictures you share on Tinder. Yes, you need to choose pictures that highlight your best qualities, but you must also avoid using certain types of pictures for privacy reasons. For instance, pictures with families or friends could expose them to stalkers and other cybercriminals.
Similarly, avoid using photos that reveal details about your residence or workplace, as they can expose your location and put you at risk. Pictures from your travels or social events are the best picks for your Tinder profile.
3. Hide your age and location
Tinder uses your age and location to determine who can see your profile and the profiles you’re shown. While Tinder needs access to this information, you can hide it from others.
To do this, go to the profile icon in the bottom left corner of the app and click on the pencil button next to your display picture. Then, scroll to the bottom of the menu and toggle “Don’t show my age” and “Don’t show my distance.”
4. Don’t link your other social media accounts
When creating a Tinder profile, you’re given the option to link your Instagram and Spotify accounts. Sharing your music preferences and recent pictures is an excellent way for others to get to know you.
However, do you want to share your Instagram profile and Spotify preferences with strangers on Tinder? Social media can reveal information about your personal life, such as your friends and places you frequently visit. If you share your social media profiles, we recommend only doing so with people you’ve matched with and spoken to.
How to Privately Swipe for Matches on Tinder
Swiping is a central part of the Tinder experience. You show interest in a person by swiping right on their profile or left if you’re not interested in them. Here are some tips to swipe for matches on Tinder without compromising your privacy.
1. Keep your activity status private
By default, people you’ve matched with on Tinder can see if you’re online and whether you’ve been online in the last 24 hours. After all, people are more likely to interact with an active Tinder user.
However, sharing your activity status reveals a lot about when and how often you use Tinder, which isn’t great for privacy. Thankfully, you can turn off activity status on Tinder by going to “Settings” and toggling off “Recently Active Status.”
2. Block people you know
If you have a secret Tinder account or you simply don’t want your family and friends to know you’re using Tinder, you can block their contacts on the app. This ensures Tinder doesn’t show your profile to them and that you don’t see their Tinder profiles.
You’re given the option to block contacts while setting up your account. You can also do this after you’ve set up your account by going to “Settings” and scrolling down to find “Block Contacts.” Tinder allows you also add contacts from your contact list or manually add the contacts you want to block.
Tinder also allows you to upload your entire contact list, but we don’t recommend doing this.
3. Hide your profile during periods of inactivity
Online dating can be frustrating sometimes. It’s not uncommon for Tinder users to take extended breaks from the app when they aren’t getting matches or things aren’t going their way. While taking such a break is reasonable, we don’t recommend keeping your profile active during such periods of inactivity.
There’s little to gain from keeping your pictures and other information online for others to see when you’re not using the app. During breaks, you should hide your Tinder profile. You can do this by going to “Settings” and toggling the “Enable Discovery” option. This will ensure your profile is hidden from others using the app — only people you’ve swiped right on or matched with will see your profile.
How to Chat and Communicate Safely on Tinder
You’ve set up a Tinder account, swiped on some profiles, and got a match! This is when things start to get fun. In your excitement to talk to this new match, it’s important to avoid risking your privacy.
Here are some useful tips on how to chat safely and keep your Tinder messages private.
1. Turn off read receipts
Read receipts lets anyone you’re chatting with know when you’ve seen a message. Tinder’s read receipts can pressure you to keep up a conversation and affect your ability to communicate with someone at your own pace. It also hinders your ability to ignore or avoid potentially problematic matches.
To turn off read receipts, tap your profile icon, open “Settings,” and click “Manage Read Receipts.” This will turn off read receipts and prevent others from seeing if you’ve read a message.
2. Do not share personal or revealing information
Sharing private information — such as your phone number, credit card details, or social security number — with Tinder matches is a bad idea. No matter how well the conversation is going, you don’t know who’s on the other side of the screen, and it’s best to avoid potentially damaging situations.
We also advise against sharing explicit images with matches on Tinder. Hackers and other cybercriminals can use such pictures to extract money from you in sextortion scams.
3. Report suspicious matches
Tinder is constantly trying to remove fake profiles, criminals, and bots from its app. You can help them by reporting any suspicious behavior you encounter. Examples of suspicious behavior include a fake Tinder account, spam, harassment, and solicitation.
You can report a Tinder account by clicking the ellipses on the top of the profile or scrolling to the bottom profile. In both cases, you should see a “Report XYZ” button. Clicking on it will bring up a menu asking you to provide a reason for blocking the user.
If you report a suspicious account, Tinder will investigate and possibly remove that account. You can also block users that harass you, preventing them from contacting you through the app.
Use a Quality Tinder VPN
Many dating sites and apps, including Tinder, have weak security. Researchers have found several vulnerabilities in the Tinder app. A 2018 report by Checkmarx revealed that Tinder uses HTTP protocol to send users’ pictures, making them accessible to hackers and other third parties. Other vulnerabilities in the app allowed attackers to view a target’s Tinder profile, their matches, and whether they swipe left or right on a person.
To ensure your Tinder profile and other private data don’t get into the wrong hands, we recommend using a VPN. A VPN encrypts your internet traffic and hides your IP address, ensuring no one can see your Tinder messages and pictures.
We’ve tested dozens of VPNs, and NordVPN is our top choice for browsing Tinder anonymously. It uses advanced encryption technology to protect your data.
- Fast and large worldwide network of VPN servers
- Perfect for privacy and streaming
- Trusted by many, with over 14 million users
Tinder Privacy and Security Concerns
How private is Tinder? The app has access to the personal information of its millions of users. Unfortunately, Tinder hasn’t protected this data adequately, resulting in security breaches. Below, we highlight some major Tinder privacy and security concerns.
Tinder’s privacy policy and data collection
A glance at Tinder’s privacy policy reveals that it collects and uses a lot of personal information. Some categories of personal information it collects are your:
- Name, phone number, e-mail address
- Photos, videos, and interests provided by users for their Tinder bio
- Information from social media accounts linked to Tinder
- Usage and activity information
- Data collected by cookies, pixels, or web beacons
- Geolocation data, photo verification data, and other information with user consent
While Tinder requires most of this information to ensure its app runs smoothly, we noticed some red flags. For instance, Tinder can receive and share data with other platforms owned by Match Group — its parent company — like Hinge and OKCupid. In 2020, the Consumer Council of Norway accused Tinder of sharing user data illegally with up to 45 companies owned by the Match Group. This is an invasion of privacy and makes you more vulnerable to security breaches.
Scams and catfishing
Hackers and cybercriminals prey on the vulnerability of users on dating apps like Tinder and Hinge. They use social engineering to lure them into sharing personal information, such as financial data or social security numbers.
Scammers can use pictures of other users or celebrities to catfish Tinder users. In catfishing scams, cybercriminals deceive their targets by pretending to be someone else. Catfishing usually gives way to sextortion and other forms of exploitation.
Stalking and harassment
Using Tinder can lead to stalking and harassment. Over the years, there have been several news stories about Tinder dates gone wrong in the worst way. In 2017, American Sydney Loofe was killed by her Tinder date. A year prior, only the bones of a woman were found in Mexico City after the man she’d met on Tinder dumped her body in hydrochloric acid.
It’s difficult for Tinder to prevent these crimes since they don’t happen on its platform. That’s why it’s important to be cautious when you decide to meet up with someone. You can, however, reduce the chance of this happening by alerting Tinder when you notice something suspicious.
Staying Safe on Tinder
Tinder can be useful if you’re looking for love and intimacy. However, using Tinder comes with some security and privacy risks. While this doesn’t mean you should stop using the app, you must take steps to protect your privacy.
Among other things, we recommend optimizing your Tinder privacy settings and limiting the personal information you share with others. We also recommend using a VPN to compensate for Tinder’s notoriously bad security.
Interested in learning how to secure your privacy on other apps? Check out the articles below:
- Stay Safe on Grindr: How to Protect Your Privacy
- Safety on Happn: This is How You Protect Your Dating Life
- Instagram Privacy Settings: How to Secure Your Account
- How to Change Your WhatsApp Privacy Settings
Do you have a specific question about using Tinder safely? Check out the FAQ section below for answers to some of the most common questions about managing your privacy on Tinder.
There are a few ways to control who sees your profile on Tinder. You can block existing contacts or hide your profile (i.e., make it visible to only people you’ve swiped right on or matched with). Your age and distance preferences also determine who can see your Tinder profile. For more information, read our full article on how to manage your privacy on Tinder.
You can protect yourself on Tinder by adopting some best practices and adjusting the privacy settings on the app. The changes you can make to protect yourself include:
- Making your Tinder profile private.
- Limiting the personal information available on your profile and being cautious of what you share with others.
- Using a VPN to encrypt your Tinder traffic.
Read our guide to improving your privacy on Tinder to learn more.
No, not everyone on Tinder can see your profile. Your profile is usually only shown to people within the age and distance range you have selected in the app. Moreover, you can block contacts, such as family or friends, from viewing your profile on the app. You can control who sees your Tinder profile by subscribing to Tinder Gold or Tinder Platinum.
Yes, there are ways to browse Tinder anonymously. For instance, you can sign up with your phone number, choose a pseudonymous name, and set up a profile with no revealing pictures. This will allow you to view the profiles of potential matches and use Tinder anonymously. However, you’re unlikely to get any matches.
