ODDA Launches Consumer Safety Panel to Shape Dating App Standards

The Online Dating and Discovery Association (ODDA), which represents dating and social discovery companies, has launched a Consumer Safety Panel to help improve industry safety standards. Announced at its annual conference in London on October 8, the initiative will give dating app users and romance fraud survivors a direct role in shaping safety policies.

The panel will bring together 12 to 16 people, including dating app users, fraud and abuse survivors, independent experts and consumer advocates. ODDA member companies will be able to consult the group on new safety features and policies. Its feedback will inform the association’s industry standards, research and policy positions.

Founding members include romance fraud expert and author Becky Holmes, financial crime specialist Olivier Kraft, LGBT+ activist Jamie Love and author Melanie Graham. The panel will be co-facilitated by ODDA and Anna Rowe, co-founder of LoveSaid, a charity supporting victims of romance fraud.

ODDA CEO Simon Newman said: “Those standards are stronger when the people they protect help write them.” The panel will hold its first meeting in the coming weeks and agree on its initial project. ODDA has not yet announced which safety issues it will tackle first.