Research conducted on 15 different dating apps, including Bumble, Badoo, Grindr, Happn, Hinge, and Hilly, has revealed some alarming results. According to the findings, your address could be exposed with an accuracy of nearly 2 meters.
How Secure Are Bumble and Other Dating Apps?
However, a new academic paper by researchers at KU Leuven in Belgium has highlighted concerning security vulnerabilities in the design of popular dating apps like Bumble, Hinge, Grindr, and Happn.
According to the published paper, these vulnerabilities allow malicious users to access the exact location of their matches just by using the app’s filtering features. This isn’t just an estimated area: KU Leuven researchers revealed that the location detection can often be accurate to within 2 meters.
The online dating app Bumble has acquired Geneva, a group chat app. Details are in our news report.
Here’s a rough overview of how it works: When a malicious person enables a filter, they see whether their target is within or outside a certain area. By using different filters to narrow down the target’s location to a specific region, for instance, 1 square kilometer, they can effectively reduce the search area. With continued filtering, they can pinpoint the location to within 2 meters.
The good news is that many dating apps have released multiple updates to address this vulnerability recently. Still, it seems wise to select options that maximize your anonymity while using these types of apps.
