A privacy checklist before a new dating app

Install the app from the store you already use, not from a link in a message. Then decide, one permission at a time, what the app needs in order to do the thing you opened it for. This is a checklist, not a legal opinion and not a promise that any setting makes you anonymous.

Before you create the account

• Use an email address you can retire. Your everyday inbox does not need to be the recovery address for a dating profile.
• Skip “sign in with” another social account unless you have read what that share includes. A login is also a pipe for a name, a photo, and a friend graph.
• Read the permission screen. Contacts, photos, location, and the microphone are separate decisions. Contacts are rarely required to swipe.
• If you grant location, prefer the choice that shares it while you are using the app, and turn off a precise home location if the product lets you set a neighbourhood instead.

Photos and the phone number

A photo of your face is the point of most dating profiles. A photo of your building entrance, your workplace lobby, or a child is not. Check the background before you crop.

Delay the phone number. Moving to SMS or WhatsApp is normal later, and it is also the moment a stranger has a number that can outlive the match. When you do share one, use a number you can change. The dating safety guide covers the meeting that may follow.

When you leave

Pause or delete the account from inside the app, then revoke the app’s access in your phone settings and in any social account you connected. Deletion steps differ. Follow the app’s own help page, and do not assume a deleted profile removes copies you sent to other people.

If a match already has your photos, blocking them stops further contact. It does not recall the files.