FOI 68/26 Dating App Offences
Date: 12/02/26
Enquiry Reference: FOI 68 - 26
I write in connection with regards to your Freedom of Information request. Below are your questions and our response.
1) How many sexual offences or harassment offences resulting from meeting a stranger via a dating app/website were reported to your force in the past three years? Please provide one figure for reports of harassment and one for reports of sexual offences for each of the following years: 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Please only include the reports in which a sexual offence or harassment offence has been reported and you can confirm that the victim and accused met on a dating app or website.
Please also include a breakdown of how many reported offences resulted from each app or website.
- a) This search is based on crime records, specifically for Harassment and sexual offences, with key words searched within the MO comments. Please note that this search is affected by crime recording and spelling of keywords.
Also, a caveat, that when searching for the term 'Date', this also filters any MO comments which relate to timestamp date, for example 'On the stated date'. Therefore, the results might be misleading. For the second sets of requested keywords, including the word 'her' brought back numerous results which were not related to social media apps. Therefore, the analyst has removed 'Her' and 'Date' from the search.
To find these reports, please look for all those which contain at least one phrase from the following list:
Tinder, Bumble, Feeld, Grindr, Plenty of Fish, Match.com, eharmony, EliteSingles, Elite Singles, Happn, Kippo, OkCupid, OK Cupid, Facebook Dating, SilverSingles, silver singles, Parship, Original Dating, Muddy Matches, Badoo, Veggly, Christian Connection, Muzz, Muzmatch, Muzzmatch, Musmatch, and JDate.
|
Crimes based on Tinder bumble etc list |
2023 |
2024 |
2025 |
|
Sexual offences or Harassment |
<5 |
5 |
5 |
Please also look for reports that contain the phrase ‘Hinge’, ‘HER’, ‘Inner Circle’, ‘Salt’, ‘Our Time’, or ‘Muzz’ AND one of the following words: ‘Date’, ‘dating’, ‘app’, ‘met’, ‘match’, ‘matchmaker’, ‘matchmaking’.
- a) As stated, the search excludes “her.
|
MO comments contain Hinge, inner circle etc and 'Met' |
2025 |
|
8L - Harassment |
<5 |
|
Social media apps in MO comments |
2023 |
2024 |
2025 |
|
HARASSMENT |
|||
|
FACEBOOK MESSENGER |
<5 |
||
|
TINDER |
<5 |
<5 |
|
|
HINGE |
<5 |
||
|
Sexual Offences |
|||
|
BADOO |
<5 |
<5 |
|
|
GRINDR |
<5 |
<5 |
|
|
TINDER |
<5 |
<5 |
<5 |
3) How many of the victims in these reports were biological women? How many were biological men?
4) What were the ages of these victims? Please split them into the following brackets: Under 16, 16 to 18, 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65+.
|
Year |
2023 |
2024 |
2025 |
|||
|
Age/Gender |
Female |
Female |
Male |
Unknown |
Female |
Male |
|
19-24 |
<5 |
|
|
|
<5 |
|
|
25–34 |
<5 |
|
|
|
<5 |
<5 |
|
35–44 |
|
<5 |
|
<5 |
<5 |
|
|
55–64 |
|
|
|
|
<5 |
|
|
65+ |
|
|
<5 |
|
|
|
|
Under 16 |
|
|
|
<5 |
|
|
|
Total |
<5 |
<5 |
<5 |
<5 |
5 |
<5 |
5) Please provide me with a figure for how many of these reports resulted in charges AND, if possible, a list of the accused who went to court. From there I will get in touch with HM Courts to find out how many were convicted.
- a) > 5 resulted in a charge in 2025.
Having made enquiries within the Force above is all the information we will disclose and we would rely on the following:
Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section 1(1) (a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Section 1(1) (b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held. Where exemptions are relied upon, Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act requires that I provide the applicant with a notice which: a) states that fact b) specifies the exemption(s) in question and c) state (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.
Cleveland Police can confirm it holds information pertinent to this request as the duty in Section 1(1) (a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply, by virtue of the following exemption:
Section 40(2) Personal Information
Section 40(2) is an absolute exemption which does not require me to evidence the harm that disclosure would cause and does not require consideration of a public interest test in justification of its use.
This exemption is engaged where disclosure of information could lead to the identification of an individual, either from that information alone or combined with other information from within the Police Service or public domain. In this case, releasing further breakdown because of the small numbers and specific questions this could lead to the identify the individuals concerned. Such a disclosure would breach an individual's rights to privacy.
Please note that all statistical data supplied in relation to Freedom of Information requests is a snapshot of data held at the time the request was received by the Freedom of Information office and is subject to constant change/updates.
If you are not satisfied with this response or any actions taken in dealing with your request, you have the right to request an independent internal review of your case under our review procedure. The Freedom of Information Code of Practice (see below link) states that a request for internal review should be made within 20 working days of the date on this response or 40 working days if extenuating circumstances to account for the delay can be evidenced. Public authorities are not obliged to accept internal reviews after this date.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/freedom-of-information-code-of-practice
Yours sincerely
Information Rights Decision Maker