Bumble

Is Bumble safe?

Bumble is one of the better-equipped dating apps against harassment, and about average against scams. Its privacy record is the weak point. Bumble's own App Store label says it may use your location, contact details, identifiers and app usage to track you across other companies' apps and websites, and it links "sensitive info" and health and fitness data to third-party advertising. We score it 50/100, a point below Tinder.

The app had about 2.4 million paying users in 2025, according to Bumble Inc.'s annual report. The same company owns Badoo, which shares much of the technology.

Safety tools that actually help

Bumble's tools target the problems women most often report on dating apps: unwanted explicit photos, abuse in messages and fake profiles.

• Private Detector blurs explicit photos automatically, so you decide whether to open them.
• Review Before You Send asks a sender to reconsider a message that may be offensive, and Bumble says a machine-learning system flags harassment and identity-based hate to moderators.
• Deception Detector uses AI to find fake and scam accounts. Bumble publishes no figures for how many it stops.
• ID verification launched in March 2025 in 11 countries, including the US, UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany and India. You submit a government ID and earn a badge, and you can filter for verified matches.
• Share Date sends the details of a date (who, when and where) to a friend from inside the app.
• In-app voice and video calls let you check a match without giving out your number.

The catch is that ID verification is optional. Tinder now makes Face Check mandatory for new users in many countries. On Bumble, you have to choose to filter for verified people, or ask a match to verify.

Romance scams and fake profiles

Every large dating app attracts romance scammers, and Bumble's women-first image does not keep them away. The FTC counted nearly 70,000 romance scam reports with $1.3 billion in losses in 2022, and 19% of people who lost money said the contact began on a dating site or app. The usual script is a perfect-looking match who quickly suggests moving to WhatsApp or Telegram, never manages a video call, and eventually introduces crypto trading or an emergency.

The ID badge is the most useful filter here. Scammers rarely put a real passport behind a fake profile.

What Bumble does with your data

The App Store label is longer than most dating apps'. Data "used to track you" covers location, contact info, identifiers and usage data. Data linked to you for third-party advertising includes precise location, email, phone number, device IDs, health and fitness data and sensitive info. On a dating app, sensitive info can mean sexual orientation.

Two legal fights centre on Bumble's handling of that data:

1. Facial scans in Illinois. From late 2021, users sued Bumble and Badoo under Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act, alleging the apps used facial geometry scans without the consent the law requires. The companies agreed a $40 million settlement covering Illinois users from November 2016 to December 2021, and agreed to delete previously collected biometric data. They did not admit wrongdoing. Bumble's 2023 annual report also disclosed more than 17,000 pre-arbitration demands about the same law.
2. AI Icebreakers in Europe. In June 2025 the privacy group noyb filed a complaint with Austria's data protection authority. It alleges that Bumble For Friends sent profile data, which can include sexual orientation, to OpenAI to generate opening lines without valid consent, and that Bumble did not name the recipients when a user asked. Bumble told the user it relies on "legitimate interest". No decision has been published.

We found no regulator fine against Bumble and no confirmed breach of its user data. Bumble does not say that its chats are end-to-end encryptedEnd-to-end encryptionEncryption in which only the sender and the recipient can read a message. The company running the service cannot see its content.More in the glossary, so treat messages as readable by the company.

How to use Bumble more safely

1. Verify your own profile, then filter for ID-verified matches where the option exists in your country.
2. Leave Private Detector on and report explicit images you did not ask for.
3. Video call inside Bumble before you meet. Anyone who always has an excuse is a red flag.
4. Keep chats in the app until you have met. Scammers push to leave because Bumble's systems cannot see other apps.
5. Never send money, gift cards or crypto to a match, and treat any investment tip as a scam attempt.
6. Use Share Date or tell a friend where you are, meet in public and arrange your own transport home.
7. On iPhone, choose "Ask App Not to Track" when prompted, and leave out your surname, employer and neighbourhood from your profile.

How we scored it

Privacy (35) is the weakest factor because the App Store label lists location and sensitive data for tracking and advertising. Scams and harmful content (48) gets credit for nude blurring and ID badges but loses points because checks are optional. Security (56) is middling with no breach found, and the regulatory record (62) reflects the $40 million biometric settlement and the open noyb complaint rather than any fine. Hinge is the other big dating app that asks you to write more about yourself.