Your Request

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I would like to request the following information relating to rape allegations linked to dating applications.

Please provide data for the period beginning 1 January 2019 up to 20 May 2026. I am requesting:

1. The total number of recorded rape allegations/offences in which any of the following dating applications were referenced within the method of attack, occurrence log, crime report, investigation notes or any searchable field:

• Tinder
• Hinge
• Bumble
• Grindr
• Feeld
• Plenty of Fish / POF
• com
• Happn
• Badoo
• eHarmony

2. Where possible, please provide a yearly breakdown for:

- 2019

- 2020

- 2021

- 2022

- 2023

- 2024

- 2025

- 2026 (as of 20 May)

3. Please also provide, where available:
   • The age of the victim (or age bracket if exact age cannot be disclosed)
   • The age of the suspect
   • Whether the suspect and complainant were previously unknown to one another
   • The specific dating application referenced

For clarity, I am referring to rape offences recorded as:

• rape of a female aged 16 or over
• rape of a male aged 16 or over
• Any equivalent rape offence classifications involving victims under 16 where the dating app was referenced

If your systems cannot conduct searches across all requested applications, please conduct keyword searches for the individual app names listed above.

Freedom of Information Act 2000

 I am pleased to provide some of the information you have requested. I have detailed below the information.

Rapes Associated with Dating Apps per year:

 

Year	Count of Crimes
2019	1
2020	4
2021	5
2022	18
2023	7
2024	3
2025	3
2026	2
Grand Total	43

 

Number of rapes per age group:

 

Age Range	Count of Crimes
Aged 16 to 19 years	17
Aged 20 to 24 years	6
Aged 25 to 29 years	9
Aged 30 to 34 years	5
Aged 35 to 39 years	2
Aged 40 to 44 years	1
Aged 45 to 49 years	1

 

Aged 55 to 59 years	1
Aged 65 to 69 years	1
Grand Total	43

 

Linked suspects age range:

 

Age Range	Count of Crimes
Aged 20 to 24 years	3
Aged 25 to 29 years	6
Aged 30 to 34 years	6
Aged 35 to 39 years	2
Aged 40 to 44 years	1
Aged 45 to 49 years	3
Aged 50 to 54 years	1
Aged 55 to 59 years	2
no linked suspect/offender	19
Grand Total	43

 

Relationship type between Victim and Suspect:

 

Relationship Type	Count of Crimes
Associate	3
In Dispute with	1
Other	8
Relationship	4
Stranger	7
Unknown	1
Zero or more than one different relationship found	19
Grand Total	43

 

Rapes per Dating App:

 

App	Grand Total
Badoo	5
Bumble	2
Grindr	18
Hinge	2
Plenty of Fish	3
Tinder	13
Grand Total	43

 

I can confirm that Durham Constabulary holds the remainder of the information you requested. However, we are withholding that information since we consider that the following exemptions apply to it.

-Section 40 - Personal information

We are withholding the breakdown of per app per year because there is a significant risk that disclosure would enable the identification of involved individuals.

The information is exempt from disclosure under Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA). The information is personal data as defined by the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA). As it is information about someone else I'm unable to give this to you; release of this information would constitute a breach of Principle 1 of the DPA. Principle 1 states that personal data shall be processed (used) fairly and lawfully and, in particular, shall not be used unless at least one of the conditions in Schedule 2 of the DPA is met; in this case none of those conditions have been met.

Section 40 is an absolute class-based exemption which does not require the public interest to be considered nor harm to be articulated.

This response therefore acts as a refusal notice under section 17 of the FoIA.