Fearing fraudsters on the prowl, Indians shying away from dating Apps, says survey

New Delhi: Using dating Apps like Tinder, Grindr and Bumble, many may have found love of their life but there are equally good number of people who fear dhokha (betrayal) and shying away from the digital platform.

The latest snooping scandal using Israeli-made Pegasus is set to add to their cyber-paranoia.

As per a Kaspersky (a global Cyber security and Digital Privacy company) survey, 34% of Indian respondents participating in the survey said that they are afraid to use dating Apps as they fear being deceived by fraudsters, while 43% generally do not trust people in dating apps.

“Anyone who registers on a dating app is, in principle, willing to open up and reveal personal information to a certain extent. After all, getting to know each other requires a willingness to share details about yourself. If this openness – and a little bit of the defenselessness that comes with it – is exploited, the injuries will run deep," said David Jacoby, security researcher at Kaspersky.

Millions of individuals use online dating applications or social networking sites in order to find a partner. But instead of finding love, many people encounter a con artist attempting to dupe them into giving money. Scammers are drawn to dating services because they know that people on these platforms are looking for a personal connection, and they can take advantage of that.

"Of all the different types of issues on dating apps, users most often encountered catfishing (33%), malicious links or attachments (38%) or found that their identity had been stolen (36%)," the survey found.

The survey noted that lack of privacy is a serious issue for dating apps and said that 26% of respondents were worried that their personal data could be circulated online.

Moreover, 24% of users deleted dating services because they wanted to make personal information more private. (UNI)