Single mothers have been warned about using dating apps as new research shows that paedophiles are using the platforms to gain access to their children.
Men who sexually abuse children are almost four times more likely to use dating apps than non-offenders, the research by the Childlight Global Child Safety Institute found.
Some 66 per cent of men who abuse children use the online platforms and 22 per cent use them daily, researchers from the University of Edinburgh and University of New South Wales discovered.
The findings – based on a survey of 5,000 men in the UK, the US and – reveal that ‘single mothers [are] at particular risk’ of being targeted on dating apps.
In light of the findings researchers are calling for stronger regulation of matchmaking apps – such as Tinder, Bumble and Hinge – which are used by almost 400 million people.
Professor Michael Salter, from the University of New South Wales, said: ‘Our findings provide clear evidence that dating apps lack adequate child protection measures, and loopholes are exploited by abusers to target single parents and their children.’
Most dating apps do not require users to provide evidence of their identity and Professor Salter said they should be made to introduce mandatory ID checks and tools to detect predatory or suspicious behaviours.
‘There’s no reason why the robust user identification methods we have in other industries, such as banking and gambling, should not also have to be adopted by dating app platforms,’ he said.
‘Similarly, there are a range of AI tools and systems that can flag problematic words and conversations that can and should be used.’
It comes after Scottish lorry driver Paul Stewart, who manipulated single mothers via dating apps so he could abuse their children, was jailed for three and a half years last December.
A court in heard how Stewart formed relationships with women he met online so he could abuse and photograph their children and share the images with a network of paedophiles on the dark web.
Childlight has previously warned that sexual exploitation and abuse of children has become a ‘pandemic’ and is now affecting more than 300 million children around the world every year.
Researchers have also uncovered what they described as ‘telltale clues’ of predatory behaviour, including that men who abuse children are more likely to be involved in online gaming, to own and use digital money known as cryptocurrency, and to buy sexual content online.
Debi Fry, Professor of International Child Protection Research at the University of Edinburgh, said: ‘Child sexual exploitation and abuse is a global public health emergency that requires emergency measures, but it’s preventable.
‘We must mobilise globally, focusing not just on reactive law enforcement but on prevention strategies tackling underlying determinants of abuse – including financial and technological ecosystems sustaining it.’