Popular Dating Website To Use Sex Offender Register

Following recent concerns about the risks of sexual assaults, popular online dating site Match.com is to begin screening its users against the national sex offender register in the United States. The site which offers relationship advice and tries to make love happen by encouraging users to find and date singles in their local area was recently embroiled in what was described as “a nasty law suite after a woman, publicly identified as Jane Doe, was followed home and the man she met (a registered sex offender) forced her to perform sexual acts upon him”.

Until now, Match.com did not apply any sort of security search on its users. According to Mandy Ginsberg, president of the online singles service, the company had avoided the move for years due to the unreliability of the database but this had since improved. Therefore, (matched) users can now expect to have their names cross-checked against the national sex offender databases. However, users of the dating Website are warned that the checks ‘remain highly flawed’ in finding dangerous offenders and they should not have a false sense of security once the new policy is implemented.

Talking Point

Should other dating Websites carry out security checks on their users?