FOI 19136-25 - Dating App Offences

Request:

For each of the 3 points listed below please provide breakdown by year –2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. Please treat each year as a calendar year from Jan-Dec. For 2025 please use Jan-September inclusive.

1) How many offences has your force recorded where the key term “Tinder” has been used? (ie where the term Tinder has been mentioned in the MO field of a crime report)?

2) How many offences has your force recorded where the key term “Hinge” has been used? (ie where the term Hinge has been mentioned in the MO field of a crime report)?

3) How many offences has your force recorded where the key term “Dating app” has been used? (ie where the term Dating app has been mentioned in the MO field of a crime report)?

When providing the data, please can you specify the nature of the crime (eg. sexual assault) and whether it resulted in a charge (y/n) and whether it resulted in a conviction (y/n).

I am aware of the limitations on your time and resources that can be applied for each FOI request. If you are able to do so within those constraints, could you also supply for each offence:
• The sex of the alleged victim.
• The age of the alleged victim (This can be divided into age ranges if easier, but should include under 18's as a category).
• Whether or not the accused had a previous conviction.

Response:

Search between 2022 & 30^th September 2025 (inclusive) for all occurrences with a mention of one or more of the following keywords within the MO and Occurrence Summary Free

Text field: TINDER, DATING APP, HINGE. Data further disaggregated by crime type, whether there was a charge, victim gender and victim age.

As with any keyword search, the search will only return exact matches within the Incident Description or Crime MO. This does not account for differences in terminology and/or spelling used. Keyword searches are problematic and in no way provide accurate results or figures. If the selected key words have not been mentioned, the data will not be returned. Vice versa, if the key words have been mentioned in an unrelated context, irrelevant data will be collected. For example, the keyword “hinge” may refer to a door hinge. A key word may also appear as part of a larger word.

Northamptonshire Police do not have a category to record whether an offence was related to a dating app, named or otherwise.

As the request is for all crimes where the specified key terms are mentioned rather than, for example, crimes involving dating apps, we have not undertaken any manual review to ensure that all offences returned relate to dating apps. Therefore, a high number of the crimes reported below are unrelated to any dating apps.

We have provided data for all outcomes, rather than only charged/summonsed, to provide a fuller picture.

TINDER

HINGE

DATING APP 

Victim gender and age may not be recorded for a number of reasons, for example, because the victim was a company rather than an individual. There may be multiple victims per offence.

Searches were conducted within Northamptonshire Police and I can confirm that Northamptonshire Police do not hold conviction information. Information on convictions, i.e. results at Court, are held by His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS).

Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Northamptonshire Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt within the provisions of the Act), to provide the applicant with a Notice which:

1. states the fact that an exemption has been applied
2. specifies the exemption in question, and
3. states why the exemption applies (if that would not otherwise be apparent)

Northamptonshire Police can not provide any further information relevant to this request as the duty under Section1(1)(b) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply by virtue of the following exemption:

Section 30(1)(a) - Investigations and Proceedings Conducted by Public Authorities

This exemption applies because the information you have requested is held or has been held for the purposes of a criminal investigation.

Section 30 is a qualified, class-based exemption, meaning that I am required to conduct a public interest test to balance the legitimate interests of the public in knowing the information against the interests of non-disclosure.

Public Interest Test

Reasons for Disclosure

There is public interest in knowing that the police investigate potential offences, some of which may be serious. This shows that Northamptonshire Police take their duty to investigate crimes seriously and will increase public confidence and understanding of our work. It will help the public to see how the police use public funds.

Reasons against Disclosure

Information relating to an investigation will only be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act where there is a strong public interest favouring disclosure. Where investigations are active, releasing details may hinder the progress of the investigations and any proceedings arising from it. This would mean that offenders are not brought to justice and the public are placed at greater risk of crime. Disclosing information may make suspects aware that a case is being actively investigated, which would enable them to adapt their behaviour to evade detection. To release any information which could be used to undermine prosecutions or aid offenders to continue to commit crime is not in the public interest.

Disclosing sensitive information would suggest that Northamptonshire Police do not take their responsibility to safeguard and appropriately handle information supplied to them as part of investigations seriously. This would undermine the confidence and relationship between the force and the public or others involved in the investigation.

Balancing Test

There is a public interest in the disclosure of information to reassure the public that Northamptonshire Police effectively investigate possible crimes. However, disclosure of the information would reduce the effectiveness of current investigations, allowing criminals to go undetected, and may undermine future proceedings that arise from the investigations. This would lead to diminishing public confidence, which would lead to fewer members of the public making reports to Northamptonshire Police, which would enable more criminals to go unobstructed and potentially place people at risk. Therefore, it is for these reasons that I believe the balance lies in favour of non-disclosure of the information.

The numerical data presented in this response is an unaudited snapshot of unpublished data sourced from "live" systems and is subject to the interpretation of the original request by the individual extracting the data.

Northamptonshire Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not for the production of statistical information for Freedom of Information responses.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when the data is used.

If you decide to write an article/use the enclosed data, we ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.