How to stay safe when online dating

11 February 2020, 15:40

On World Safer Internet day, we give our top tips for staying safe online and on dating websites including Classic FM Romance.

Today (11 February) is Safer Internet Day – a time to reflect on how we can stay as safe as possible when using the Internet and interacting with others online, including on social media and dating websites.

Online dating is a great way to meet like-minded people who you might have not crossed paths with in real life. But while it’s super convenient, it isn’t without some risks.

Classic FM’s dating website, Classic FM Romance, takes extra steps to make sure its users are extra safe. But even with teams looking after the safety of online dating behind the scenes, it’s worth bearing in mind the extra steps you can take to protect yourself from people who might not have your best interests at heart.

Read more: Join the online dating website designed for those who love arts, culture and classical music >

7 tips for staying safe online dating

1. Cease contact with people who are eager to exchange personal contact details in the first message and want to move communication off the dating site straight away.

2. Let emotional intensity ring alarm bells – it’s not usual to receive exaggerated compliments, over-sharing or declarations of love within a short period of time from someone you haven’t met in real life.

3. Never, ever send or give money to someone you’ve met (or indeed never met) on an online dating platform or elsewhere on the Internet – no matter how plausible, or desperate their plight might sound. No genuine person would ever ask for money and Classic FM Romance urges any user who has received such a request to get in touch straight away.

4. Stay away from messaging people who launch into talk of hospital, doctors’ fees, emergency payment for confiscated documents or payment for air tickets to come and meet them early on – they’re likely to have ulterior motives.

5. Be careful how you word things – sometimes the written word can be misinterpreted so it’s important to be considerate about how things you type may come across – save your deeper or more humorous comments for when you’re ready to meet in person.

6. Don’t reveal personal details until you know you can trust the person you’re talking to. This includes identifiers like your date of birth, email address or mobile number, and of course your address (see below).

7. And never, ever reveal your current location, or the address of your home or places you regularly visit, until you are absolutely sure you can trust who you’re talking to.

How does Classic FM Romance keep its members safe?

• Administrators check every profile and photo that are posted on to the sites, ensuring there is no controversial or offensive content.

• Support team double-checks the profile description against any accompanying photo – any profiles deemed not to be genuine are deleted immediately.

• System automatically detects and flags any profiles with questionable content, ensuring these are dealt with as a priority.

• The private messaging system is secure, so that members do not have to reveal any personal information to other members (like private email address, contact numbers etc) until they feel comfortable in doing so.

• Problem users (i.e. people who have previously created questionable profiles that have removed before) are automatically detected or flagged and removed.

• Members can choose to block members that they no longer wish to be in contact with, so people can control their dating environment.

• Members can also report other members to the Classic FM Romance support team, if they feel their behaviour doesn’t conform to expected standards – the team operates on a two-strike rule: removing any profile that has more than two independent complaints recorded against it.

• As well as protecting you and your online dating experience, Classic FM Romance looks after your data. A high level of security is applied to all IT systems and member data is encrypted during transmission over the Internet. Passwords are not stored in their original form in plaintext and instead they are hashed using a one-way hashing algorithm which means it cannot be recovered (or disclosed) by anyone, including members of the Classic FM Romance team.

Happy Safer Internet Day! Click here to find out more about dating safely on Classic FM Romance.