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Dating App Sexual Assault Lawsuit
What Is a Dating App Sexual Assault Lawsuit?
Dating app sexual assault lawsuits are not about a date going wrong. They are about (mostly) women being sexually assaulted by serial predators using dating apps to find their next victims and getting away with REPEAT sexual assault of their dating app “matches” because Match Group and other online dating providers have not taken reasonable steps to ban reported predators.1
Want to Fight Back? We Want to Help You.
Shockingly, Match Group has seemingly known for years which users have been reported for harming their dates. According to an in-depth investigation by The Guardian (reprinted in The Markup), Match Group’s database has recorded every user reported for assault on any of its apps; by 2022, the data collection system, known as Sentinel, was collecting hundreds of troubling incidents every week, company insiders say.2
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It doesn’t matter what app you were using – if you are a survivor of dating app sexual assault, we want to hear from you.
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Online Dating Sexual Assault Lawsuits.
Buckle up.
Let’s talk about Stephen Matthews, a Denver, Colorado-based cardiologist, then 34, seemingly charming, and, according to court records, a serial predator. He used Match Group’s Tinder and Hinge for years to lure women to his apartment, where he drugged and sexually assaulted them.
He wasn’t some mystery to Match Group (the company behind both apps.) In fact, he was first reported in 2016. Then again in 2020. Then again. And again.3
So, how was he finally stopped? Not by Match Group. Not by the apps’ safety teams. By one survivor who took her story to Colorado police in January 2023. A judge sentenced Matthews to 158 years in prison on October 12, 2024, and a dating app sexual assault suit commenced around February 15, 2025 (actual date unspecified, but an investigation began on February 13, 2025, and the first cases were being described in the news by February 16, 2025), against Match Group + other offending platforms.
Turns out, multiple women had reported him in quick succession to the Match Group User Advisory Council (MGAC) for dating app sexual assault. None of them, nor all those harmed before by him, had any idea the doctor was a repeat offender, much less that Match had known all about him since 2016.
And if you’re wondering if it could get any worse, according to an NPR investigation in February 2025,“ he was featured as a ‘standout’ date on Hinge.”
Yes, that’s right. The app promoted his profile after he’d been reported for assault.
If you were assaulted by someone you met on a dating app, we are here to help you hold these companies responsible for keeping repeat offenders under wraps. You were not the only one flying blind. Match, for instance, compiles detailed transparency reports on predators who populate its 45+ dating apps, but has refused to publicize them because “safety protocols could stall corporate growth.”4
What’s Going On With
Dating Apps and Sexual Assault?
Pretty much the same thing that’s been going on for 30 years, since Gary Kremen launched Match Group (aka, match.com) in 1995. As of May 2025, Match Group cited its value at $7.17 billion (other sources say $8 billion4), claiming 60% of the global online dating market.5
And as of 2025, other sources differed on the exact number of billions, but most calculated the entire global dating app industry’s value at between $9.4 billion in 2024, projecting it to be worth about $13.4 billion by 2030 and, according to Global Newswire, surge to $65.76 billion by 2032.6
Match.com officially rolled out its safety policy in 2020, pledging to document every predator and claiming that “all accounts found that are associated with that user will be banned from our platforms.” But investigations reveal that may not be so.
In an internal presentation slide from 2021, Match execs asked themselves – “Do we push back on how much we are required to reveal, or do we try to go beyond what is required?”
Spoiler: They didn’t go beyond. They barely met the minimum to stop online dating sexual assault.
As of 2025, Match Group screens its paid subscribers on match.com against state sex offender registries but does not extend this practice to its free platforms, including Tinder, OkCupid, and Plenty of Fish. A Match Group spokesperson acknowledged that “there are definitely registered sex offenders on our free products.”7
A dating app sexual assault lawsuit filed in February 2025, against Match Group and other offending companies, offered survivors the opportunity to take civil legal action. The lawsuit alleges that these companies were aware of Stephen Matthews and countless other repeat predators populating their platforms but failed to warn users or permanently remove them.8
Why Would a Dating App NOT Remove Known Sexual Predators?
Good question. The answer might just be profit margins. “I think you just have to remember that the app [match.com] is not invested in your safety,” said investigative reporter Emily Elena Dugdale. “They are invested in money. So, you need to treat every match that you make online as someone who could be dangerous.”9
Whistleblower Michael Lawrie, the former head of User Safety and Advocacy at OkCupid (a Match app), resigned after his concerns about user safety went unheeded. “It became impossible for me to carry on working there, ethically and morally,” he said.9
What you may not know is that Match Group, aka match.com, owns many of the biggest names in online dating, meaning they are the force behind the lion’s share of all online date activity (60%, according to Match’s own website). Here is a list of the most popular apps Match Group owns:
- BLK
- Tinder
- Hinge
- OkCupid (“OKC”)
- Match.com
- Plenty of Fish (“P”)
This is a huge problem. Without stronger enforcement, predators removed from one dating app can quickly resurface on the same or different platforms. Transparency reports would make it harder for bad actors to reoffend. For example, predators can quickly create new Tinder accounts almost instantly using an identical name, birthday, and profile photos from banned profiles. They can also easily jump over to Hinge or other apps without altering any personal details, according to the Dating Apps Reporting Project, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network + The Guardian.10
Why Should I File a Dating App Assault Lawsuit?
Dating apps should be safe spaces for users to connect, but, when Match and other platforms fail to remove known sexual predators, they put people at grave risk and must be held accountable for neglecting to protect users from known risks on their platforms.
The statistics on this are shocking. A 2022 survey conducted for the “BBC Three” documentary Dating’s Dangerous Secrets indicated that 25% of people who used dating apps since 2018 experienced sexual assault while on a date. Out of those who said they reported the offender to the platform, half said they were dissatisfied with the dating service’s response, if there was a response at all.11
Even though platforms claim you technically sign up of your own free will and meet up with a “match” because you choose to, it doesn’t mean it’s your fault when something goes wrong – the app advertised itself as safe but failed to protect you.
Is This About Putting the Predators in Jail?
Thankfully, yes, and also no. Sometimes individual predators like Stephen Matthews are charged in both criminal cases (aiming for prison time) and civil cases – what we do (aiming for monetary compensation from big companies to aid survivors and push the big companies to change their policies).
While we’re relieved that Matthews was sentenced to prison for 158 years, we believe we can effect more widespread change by calling the culture itself into question and addressing the problem at the root.
We’re not just going after one predator at a time. We’re going after the executive decision makers who should have been more watchful.
Civil cases like the dating app sexual assault lawsuit are driven by the injustice and anger of survivors. The goal of the lawsuit is not only to seek financial compensation for those harmed, but also to push for systemic industry change that can help make dating apps safer for everyone.
How Can A Case for Women Help Me?
A Case for Women has proven its fighting power in sexual assault casework across so many different industries. The following niches have seen one or more national social media/advertising campaigns from us challenging separate abusers:
We are human people on the other end of the line when you reach out. The simplest way to get in touch is by filling out the brief form provided here. Our goal is the same as it ever was: As women, we want to help women when and how they most need it.
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Sources
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Emily Elena Dugdale and Hanisha Harjani, “Rape under wraps: how Tinder, Hinge and their corporate owner chose profits over safety,” The Guardian, February 13, 2025; duplicated in The Markup.
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Ibid.
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Elizabeth Naismith Picciani, “He Sexually Assaulted Her After They Met on Bumble. Then She Saw Him on Tinder. Then Hinge.” ProPublica, March 9, 2020.
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Unnamed, “Market capitalization of Match Group (MTCH),” Match Group, May 2025.
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Staff, “Dating Services Industry Forecast to Reach $13.4 Billion by 2030 – How Match Group, Bumble, Grindr, Spark Networks, and The Meet Group are Capturing the Largest Market Shares,” Global NewsWire, November 21, 2024.
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Ally Schweitzer and Michael Martin, “Online dating giant Match Group is slow to remove dangerous daters, investigation finds,” NPR, February 25, 2025.
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Hillary Flynn, Keith Cousins, and Elizebeth Naismith Picciani, “Tinder Lets Known Sex Offenders Use the App. It’s Not the Only One ProPublica, December 2, 2019.
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Linda Adey, “Dating’s Dangerous Secrets,” BBC Three, February 28, 2025.
WE WEAR THIS BADGE PROUDLY. Because, in a time when legal services are still dominated by men, only a Women Owned Business can bring the woman’s perspective to issues that disproportionately affect women.
We are the ones, far more than men, who are injured by sexual assault, financial scams, the gender pay gap, toxic chemicals, and the misguided practices of powerful pharmaceutical companies.
