The Sex Offender Registry and Online Dating: Safety Examined
A lot of folks out there these days meet their prospective mates on line, and frankly, that makes a whole lot of sense, and is no sillier than paying the village matchmaker to make you a match, or having your sister’s husband’s brother’s boss hook you up with someone.
In addition to being able to sort prospective mates by interest and appearance and all sorts of other criteria, it is now possible to really check out people. Match.com recently announced it will start doing sex offender background checks on people who use its service, matching names on credit cards to databases with lists of sex offenders. This comes after being sued by a woman who was raped by a convicted sex offender she met through Match.com.
Match.com points out that the search database isn’t perfect, and you shouldn’t rely on an “all clear” on the database for your personal safety. In that regard, they are right. Any online database is going to have duplications, omissions, and mistakes in it. A guy named “Smith” might have a bunch of false positives, or he might be the “John Smith” that committed that string of rapes you read about in the paper a few years ago. That doesn’t mean that they, and you, should not check out potential mates on line.
The standard precautions are good ones. Meet in a public place, provide your own transportation, don’t add alcohol to the mix (or drugs), tell a friend where you are and when you’re expected home, don’t take your date back to your place until you know each other better.
When in doubt, opt for safety. Ask to see ID, and verify against the name your date has given you. If anything feels funky, excuse yourself to the restroom and don’t come back, or find some other way to leave the situation. Don't assume that your online service did a background check, or that, if they did, it found everything.
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