In recent years, online dating sites have fulfilled the emotional void for many people either because they are too busy to meet potential mates in reality or they are too shy to make the first move.  Rather than hang out in bars or hope that random dates work out, paid online dating sites mostly save a person time as online dating is boundless, which means people can enlarge the range of encounters to pursue more opportunities in a short period of time.

To be a member of an online dating website, people fill out a pre-prepared form provided by the online dating site that describes what they are like, what their interests and hobbies are, and what they are looking for in their potential mate. Once the profile is posted on the dating site, members of such sites can browse, make contact and possibly develop a relationship based on the criteria the site has provided. The online dating sites contain large databases with business intelligence, psychological profiling, and matching algorithms and other specialized software to “define” each member's “type” as either qualitative or quantitative. A member searches based on his/her type will result in a range of findings which maximize search efficiency. However, security is one big challenge for online dating websites. At the click of a button, one’s personal information becomes public record. There are threats of unauthorized personal information releases that attract pedophiles, sexual predators, scammers, and spammers. There have been instances when people are financially, emotionally badly hurt by predators on online dating sites. 

This research will make conclusions whether the online dating websites are secure enough or it is risky to post a genuine personal profile on them. It also intends to provide a few suggestions on how to safeguard one’s personal information for both the online dating service users and websites.