Plenty of Fish

Is Plenty of Fish safe?

Plenty of Fish is about as safe as the other big free dating apps, which is to say the main risk comes from other users, not from the company. Anyone can message anyone without paying, so scammers can reach a lot of people cheaply. The app shares usage data and coarse location for advertising, but it runs a paid bug bounty, offers SMS two-factorTwo-factor authenticationSigning in with a second proof of identity on top of your password, such as a code from an app, a security key or a passkey.More in the glossary login and is rolling out a Face Check video selfie. We score it 50/100, a point below Match and Tinder. Its privacy and security scores are close to theirs, and Match Group's 2025 FTC order names POF as well as Match.com.

POF launched in Vancouver in 2003 and Match Group bought it in 2015. Match Group's annual report says it relies on a freemium model and has broad appeal in the US, Canada and the UK.

What POF does with your data

Apple's privacy label lists product interaction and advertising data that may be used to track you across other companies' apps and websites, and coarse location and product interaction linked to you for third-party advertising. Precise location, photos, audio, financial information and "sensitive info" are linked to you for analytics and personalisation. On Google Play, POF says it collects race and ethnicity, political or religious beliefs and sexual orientation, and shares device IDs and app interactions with other companies for advertising.

The privacy policy that took effect on 11 March 2026 adds detail. Advertising partners get data through cookies and SDKs, and some turn your email address, phone number or ad ID into an identifier used to target ads at people similar to you. Data goes to other Match Group companies for safety and recommendations. A feature added in June 2026, Expanded Discovery and Interaction, can show your POF profile on other Match Group apps. POF's help page does not say whether it is on by default, so check it under Settings, Your Privacy Choices, Match Group Data Sharing.

Retention is spelled out better than on many apps: accounts close after two years of inactivity, data is kept for three months after closure for safety, and transaction records for ten years.

Face Check and your face data

POF's help centre says it is introducing Face Check in phases, "where local regulations permit". You record a short video selfie; POF checks that you are a live person, estimates your age, compares your face with your profile photos and compares a face template against other accounts to stop impersonation. The video itself is deleted, but POF keeps two audit images, the age estimate and the face templates. The templates stay for the life of the account and are deleted within 30 days of closing it.

That is a real trade. Face Check should cut the fake profiles that drive romance scams, and Match Group's annual report says it plans to bring Face Check to more of its brands after Tinder. But where it is required, the only way to delete the face data is to delete your account, and Match Group affiliates may share it to ban accounts on other apps.

Security record

We found no confirmed breach of POF data in the last ten years. In December 2019 TechCrunch reported that the app sent first names and ZIP codes that users had set to private, in a form that free traffic-analysis tools could read; POF fixed it that month. Two older incidents fall outside our ten-year window: a 2011 hack of the site and malicious ads served on it in 2015.

POF runs a bug bounty on HackerOne that pays rewards, and its security page describes an internal red team. Two-factorTwo-factor authenticationSigning in with a second proof of identity on top of your password, such as a code from an app, a security key or a passkey.More in the glossary login works by SMS code. Messages are encrypted in transit, and POF does not claim end-to-end encryptionEnd-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.

Scams on a free-messaging app

The FTC counted nearly 70,000 US romance scam reports and $1.3 billion in losses in 2022, with a median loss of $4,400. The favourite cover stories were a far-off military posting, an oil-rig job and a crypto "investment" the scammer offers to teach you. POF's own safety page warns about matches who say they are stuck abroad and need money to come home.

Its Safety Toolbox puts selfie verification, a button to ask a match to verify, Share My Date and a crisis text line in one place, and Safe Message Filters warn about attempts to move you off the app. POF also warns that it has no phone support: since January 2023, anyone calling as "POF support" is a scammer.

How to use Plenty of Fish more safely

1. Turn on two-factorTwo-factor authenticationSigning in with a second proof of identity on top of your password, such as a code from an app, a security key or a passkey.More in the glossary login and never pass the SMS code to anyone.
2. Ask a match to verify from the chat before you spend time on them, and video call before meeting.
3. Keep the conversation on POF until you have met; a push to WhatsApp or Telegram on day one is a warning sign.
4. Check Expanded Discovery and Interaction and switch it off if you do not want your profile shown on other Match Group apps.
5. Never send money, gift cards or crypto to someone you have not met, whatever the story.

How we scored it

Scams and harmful content (44) and privacy (40) are the weakest factors: free messaging gives scammers easy reach, and the app tracks you for ads and shares sensitive profile data with Match Group. Security (54) is middling, helped by a paid bug bounty and two-factorTwo-factor authenticationSigning in with a second proof of identity on top of your password, such as a code from an app, a security key or a passkey.More in the glossary login. The regulatory record (65) is the strongest factor, but not a clean one: the FTC's 2025 case against Match Group was about Match.com, yet the order it produced names POF as a covered service. A C$48,000 anti-spam undertaking with Canada's CRTC dates from 2015, outside our ten-year window.