‘Lethal levels’ of sexual extortion stemming from dating apps

Dating apps have been weaponized by criminals, with alarming rates of revenge porn and sexual extortion attributed to the service, according to the Australian Commissioner.

More than 3 million Australians use dating apps in search of love, but too often they find something worse.

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said using the app is dangerous, especially for women and gender-diverse communities.

Image-based abuse, such as revenge porn, increased by over 600% during lockdown.

“Through our own complaint schemes, we have certainly seen evidence of this in terms of how dating sites can be weaponized by criminals,” the commissioner told the AAP. Told.

“Today we are dealing with a devastating level of reports of sexual extortion.”

Inman Grant said dating apps need to take more responsibility to root out prolific behavior.

“It is clear that online dating apps and websites have to do more to make their platforms and services more secure, and this roundtable is being held to find solutions to these problems. “It’s an important next step for us,” she said.

The roundtable will be hosted by Communications Minister Michel Rowland on Wednesday and will include state and territory ministers, dating app representatives and law enforcement agencies.

“Some of the issues we highlight include dating platforms doing more to stop abuse,” said Inman Grant.

This includes “nudge” techniques that make people think twice before submitting harassment or abuse.

Empowering victims to come forward is also spotlighted.

“It’s also important to design an easy-to-use in-app reporting mechanism and have a clear escalation path if something goes wrong,” says Inman Grant.

The eSafety Commissioner has expressed concern over serial offenders and more needs to be done to hold perpetrators accountable.

“One of the big problems we see is recidivism. Offenders are banned forever, but they can create new accounts using different devices and email addresses,” says Inman Grant. says Mr.

She wants to explore consistent and binding obligations to keep criminals who continue to abuse women online from appearing on other platforms.

“This perpetrator information should also be shared with law enforcement and online safety regulators, if appropriate, so that investigations can proceed,” said Inman Grant.

Three-quarters of Australian Crime Institute survey respondents had been victims of some form of sexual violence online in the past five years.

A third have experienced in-person abuse from someone they met on an app, including incidents of sexual assault and coercion.