Victims of crime professionals state that online dating sites should undertake security checks to ensure criminals do not use the services they are offering.
eHarmony has already said it doesn’t do criminal checks of its site users as it does not wish to give customers the feeling that they are totally secure. Ms Markin, a television producer for a Los Angeles TV station, affirmed that she was sexually violated by a male she got together with on match.com, The USA’s largest online dating business.
“If they had done some sort of background vetting, the incident would have been averted,” Markin explained to the local radio news station
Match.com has now instigated a screening process which check users on the U.S. A. Sex Offender’s Register.
The chief of Canada’s biggest background vetting company states that even though no criminal record scan is 100%, Canada does have the best throughout the world.
“If I was the CEO for an online dating business and I had a method of making it safer for my clients, or open up an a way for my clients to check, I would most certainly go ahead and put it in pace,” said David Dingle, CEO of a Canadian background checking business.
However, online dating websites are now so international with customers from all over the globe who live with different laws and legal procedures, it can be quite challenging to provide a useful way of ensuring that online dating site members are moving within a safe environment.
“Individuals can always slip between the cracks and I think that’s what the larger dating sites fear the most,” said an adviser to online dating businesses.
Also, for because of the protection of privacy issues a business can’t just ask for another person’s criminal record. But, they would have to conduct a search of court records which can take up a lot of time.
Dingle said users could provide their own criminal clearance documents and the partner matching could be confined to others who had done the same thing.
