Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')
As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.
You asked:
1) Can you do a keyword search in your system to tell me how many stalking, sexual offences, rapes, instances of coercive and controlling behaviour or assaults have been reported in total since 01/01/2015 linked to the following dating apps: Tinder, Happn, Bumble, Plenty of Fish, Match, Inner Circle, Grindr, OkCupid and Zoosk. A keyword search for each named app and the phrases "stalking", "sexual offence", "rape","coercive and controlling behaviour", and "assault" would be fine but please advise if another method would be more effective at finding the information I’m after.
2) Please can you provide a total of reports found by type of crime and per dating app.
3) Please can you indicate in the same period how many charges have been brought in total for all stalking, sexual offences, rape, instances of coercive and controlling behaviour or assaults where reference to one of the above named dating apps is mentioned since 01/01/2015.
In Response:
I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.
1&2
A search was conducted using all of the key words stated above however all were negative except the below results for "rape".
Rape
Grindr 1
Plenty of Fish 2
Tinder 2
3. No Charges were brought as a result of the above offences