Dating Safety Tips

Be mindful of sharing personal information.

We strongly discourage you from sharing personal information such as your home address with strangers that you are chatting with online and have not yet met in person. Additionally, never provide personal information, such as: your social security number, credit card number or bank information to people you don’t know or haven’t met in person. Please note, Club Soda, will never send you an email asking for your username and password information. Any such communication should be reported immediately.

Consider using unique photos for your dating profile.

It is really easy to do a reverse image search with Google. If your dating profile has a photo that also shows up on your Instagram or Facebook account, it will be easier for someone to find you on social media if that is of concern to you.

Avoid putting lots of personal details on your profile.

Don’t include your last name, contact information, or social media account handles. And while you’re checking your online dating profile, check your other social media accounts. Do they have lots of information that would make it easy for a stranger to steal your identity or track you down in real life? Reevaluate what you’re sharing—even if you’ve got tight privacy settings, there’s the possibility that someone in your friend list could share information from your profile with someone you don’t know.

Use the dating app’s messaging system.

It might be less convenient than texting with your phone’s default messaging system, but it gives you extra protection.

Consider setting up a unique phone number (e.g. Google Voice) just for dating.

At some point, you may want to talk to someone on the phone before you meet them in person. But instead of giving your real phone number to someone you don’t know, consider using a single use number, like a Google phone number and forwarding it to your phone.

Get to know them, but don’t share too many details at first.

The point of talking online is to get to know someone better, but it’s still smart to wait to share more personal details until you’ve met them in person. Unfortunately, someone who seems great when chatting in an app could be very different in real life.

Arrange your own transportation.

It’s smart to avoid letting someone know exactly where you live until you know them better. Drive yourself to the date or get a ride, but don’t have your date pick you up or take you home.