Identity theft: ‘How a fake profile of me on a dating site made me fear for my safety’

The vast majority of us have a presence online with more and more of us active on social media platforms. We may share information about our daily lives, about our work and post snapshots of our activities with our families, of nights out and of holidays. But have you ever considered that the information you share online could be used by scammers or could even be putting you in danger? This is exactly what happened to freelance journalist Cerith Mathias. 

"As a producer and writer, I’m used to telling other people’s stories on TV or in print. But after discovering my personal information and photographs were being used on a fake online dating profile, I’ve decided to share my experience in the hope that it’ll help others be more aware that the things we post online can have an impact on our ‘real-world’ lives. 

"We regularly hear about people being tricked by romance-scammers online, a phenomenon known as ‘catfishing’ where online identities are fabricated to dupe people into emotional or romantic relationships. Often the objective is to extort money. But, have you ever considered how these fake accounts and profiles are created in the first place and whose identities are being used to set them up? 

"Unfortunately, I can answer that question. It is something that has happened to me and I’m still dealing with the fall-out. One Monday morning around two months ago, an email arrived from an address I was unfamiliar with. Nothing unusual in that, as a freelance journalist, I often receive emails from people outside my contacts list. But this email was different. It was from a man who believed he’d been speaking to me on an online dating website and he wanted to know why I’d stopped messaging him.

"This is how I found out about a fake account on a dating app that was pretending to be me. The account was using my name, my photographs, my job title and even my location.

"I was taken aback. I’ve never been a member of a dating site and had no idea what he was talking about. I explained this and asked for the name of the website he was referring to so that I could contact them and get the fake account taken down. He was reluctant to believe me at first and sent further emails referring to details about me and where I work. 

"The dating app in question connects people who sign up to it with those living nearby and encourages members to use their location services to show where they are. This person believed they’d connected with me on the site and by cross-referencing my name with the information about me online, from my genuine social media accounts for example, had managed to put a jigsaw together of who I am that had plenty of real-world detail to it. 

"When I looked myself up online, I was surprised at just how easy it is to piece together a pretty accurate picture of someone and their daily life simply by looking at a social media bio. Name - check, location - check, place of work - check. My accounts are all locked and until this moment, I’d thought I was in control of who could see the information I share, but a quick internet search showed pictures I’d been tagged in or old profile pictures I’d long forgotten about.

"When the person who’d contacted me suggested coming to one of the places I work, often alone, in order to show me the dating profile and to help me find out who was pretending to be me, I contacted the police. It was at this point I found out that impersonating someone online isn’t illegal. 

"The police were able to speak with this person and told them not to contact me again but weren’t able to deal with the fake profile itself. Unless I could prove who’d set up the fake profile and that they were doing so in order to commit fraudulent activity, that is scamming a person for money, nothing illegal had actually taken place.

"I contacted the website in question to ask them to remove the profile. As I’m not a member of the site, it took several emails to get a response. Once they’d confirmed they’d taken the profile down, I asked for proof but was told that providing me with this information is against GDPR rules. They said that they would be able to share the information with the police, but as there was no criminal activity for the police to follow up, I found that there was nothing else I was able to do. 

"For me, it was terrifying to think that the person who contacted me lives or works in the same area as me, knows where I work and what I look like, but equally as troubling is not knowing how many other people believe that they’ve been talking to me on a dating site. I have no idea what’s being said and done in my name and to what purpose. Perhaps I’ll only ever know this once something awful has happened, either online or in the ‘real world.’ On a professional level, this is incredibly worrying, on a personal level, it’s made me fearful for my safety. 

"In the weeks since, I’ve received several messages on social media from men who claim they’ve been speaking with me on other dating sites. It would appear that my identity has been used to set up numerous fake profiles on several other sites and apps. Currently, there is little help out there for people in my situation and with the onus on me to tackle the problem, it feels more than a little overwhelming. I have considered deleting my online presence completely, but also feel that I don’t want to be pushed out from this space, one that I use both for my work and socially, as most of my peers do. I’ve also considered replacing my social media bio with ‘You haven’t been speaking to me on a dating website."

"Since speaking to the Y Byd ar Bedwar programme, I’ve found that sadly, what is happening to me isn’t unique. According to Report Harmful Content, a website provided by UK Safer Internet Centre, impersonation, creating accounts using someone else’s identity is the third most common online harm reported to them. The most common form of complaint relates to harassment or bullying, with pornography the second most common form of complaint. With the rapid pace of technological developments such as AI, it seems this is a problem that is only going to get worse, with fake profiles becoming more and more sophisticated and less easy to spot. 

"For those of us who regularly use social media, we’re accustomed to seeing posts from friends and family saying they’ve been hacked, that a fake account has been set up in their name using their photographs, and asking us to report and block it. It’s easy to think of this as an online problem only, but as what’s happening to me and countless others in my situation shows, having your identity stolen to create fake profiles can have very real world consequences, ones that we all should be mindful of when sharing our details online."

Useful Links: 

• If you need advice or suspect you may be a victim of fraud, visit Action Fraud or call 0300 123 2040 to report it.

• To learn more about how to prevent email, phone based and online fraud, visit Take Five 

If you or someone you know may be in immediate danger, call 999

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