The distance shown next to your name on a dating app does not come from your internet connection. It comes from the location permission you handed that app the day you installed it. Turning that permission down from precise to approximate is the one change that moves the number, and it takes about thirty seconds.
There is a second address, and it works separately. Every app you open and every site you browse is handed an address by your internet connection, and that address points to roughly the area you are sitting in. Changing it takes about two minutes on a phone: switch on a free VPN and apps and sites see the server’s address instead of the one your home or café network gave them.
Those two layers get muddled together constantly, which is why most dating app privacy advice lands somewhere beside the point. What follows sorts them out: the settings that decide what a match can work out about you, the settings that decide what the network around you can see, and the parts no software reaches.
Dating apps deal in two separate kinds of location data, and the fix is different for each.
The one you see is the distance. Your phone hands the app a set of coordinates, the app compares them against everyone else’s, and the result appears on your profile as a number of kilometres. How sharp that number is depends on the permission you granted: precise location is accurate to a few metres, approximate location is accurate to a few kilometres.
The one you do not see is the address your connection carries. The moment your phone joins a network, your internet provider issues it an address. Every website and every app server you contact receives that address and works out roughly which city you are in. Nothing on your part triggers it — it travels with every request your phone makes.
Turn the permission down and the distance goes fuzzy while the address keeps travelling. Change the address and the distance stays exactly where it was. Two separate switches, two separate results.
They show a distance, not a place — and a distance sampled enough times becomes a place.
Say your profile tells a match you are 3 km away. That sounds vague. The number updates, though, and someone who moves to three different spots and records the distance from each can draw three circles. Where those circles meet is you. This is not a fault in one particular app; it is what publishing a distance does.
Researchers who tested 15 dating apps in 2024 showed how far that goes. On two widely used apps, repeated distance readings narrowed a person’s position to within a couple of metres. TechCrunch reported it in July that year under the headline that Bumble and Hinge “allowed stalkers to pinpoint users’ locations down to 2 meters”. Both apps have since changed how they calculate and round the distance they publish.
The fix sits in your phone rather than in the app. On an iPhone, open Settings, find the app, and switch Precise Location off. On Android, open the app’s permissions and set location to approximate. The app carries on working; the number it publishes gets blunt.
A VPN does not reach this layer. The distance is calculated from the coordinates your phone supplies, so changing the address apps receive leaves that number precisely where it was.
Three switches, ten minutes, and more effect than any software on this page.
Unlink Your Social Accounts
Connecting Instagram, Facebook or Spotify to a dating profile hands over your surname, your friend list, the places you tag and years of older photos in a single tap. Most people link an account for the extra photos and then forget it is there. Disconnecting them in the profile settings is the most useful thirty seconds in this article.
Strip the Location Out of Your Photos
Your camera writes the coordinates of the spot where a photo was taken into the file itself. Dating platforms usually remove that data when you upload to a profile, but an original image sent straight into a chat can carry it through. Two fixes: turn location tagging off in your camera settings, or screenshot the photo and send the screenshot, which drops the original data.
Keep Your Surname and Your Workplace Off the Profile
Use your given name. A surname combined with a workplace, or a surname combined with a recognisable view from your front verandah, is usually enough for a patient stranger to arrive at an address. The test for any detail: would this still be safe in the hands of someone who already knows your name?
None of the three cost money or require you to install anything. Once they are done, the connection layer is worth a look.
This is the layer you can change, and it is the one tied to whichever network you happen to be on.
When you join the free Wi-Fi at a café, a gym or a waiting room, whoever runs that network can see which sites and services your phone opens. Every site you reach also receives the address that network gave you. With a VPN switched on, both views change: the network sees one encrypted connection, and the sites see the VPN server’s address instead of yours.
Sorting which worry belongs to which layer makes the rest of this straightforward.
| What You Want to Keep Private | What Decides It | Does a VPN Change It? |
| The distance shown next to your profile | The location permission you gave that app | No |
| The address apps and websites receive | Your internet connection | Yes |
| Location data saved inside your photos | Your camera settings, and the file itself | No |
| What a café or gym network sees you opening | Your internet connection | Yes |
| What a match can find out about you elsewhere | The accounts you link, and your surname | No |
| Your phone number | Whether the conversation moves off the app | No |
Six rows, two of them yes. A VPN is one tool on this list rather than the list itself, and treating it as the whole answer is how people end up relaxing the four settings that do the heavier work.
Which server the connection lands on is a setting rather than a guess. On iPhone and Android the free version of X-VPN lets you pick the location by hand, and Sydney and Melbourne are both on that list; the free desktop version connects automatically instead. For anyone who wants the connection to stay in the country, that is what a free VPN for Australia means in practice. The free version starts with no account and no personal details — no email, no card — and it carries no data cap.
What it changes is the address and what the local network can see. What you typed into your profile, and where you took the conversation next, sit outside its reach.
Australia has two free, non-commercial guides on this, and almost nobody links to them.
eSafety publishes a page on online dating that covers verifying who you are talking to, handling unwanted images, and what to do when someone will not take no for an answer. It is written plainly and kept current.
WESNET, the national women’s services network, publishes a printable Dating Safety Guide through techsafety.org.au. It was written for women returning to dating with a reason to be careful about being found, which makes it the most relevant document in this area for readers of this site. It shows up in almost no search results for dating privacy.
Two habits appear in every Australian guide on the subject. Meet somewhere public and arrange your own transport there and back. Tell one person where you are going and when you expect to be home. Both are in every list because they work.
Returning to dating raises a problem a fresh sign-up does not have: some of your accounts are still joined to someone else.
Shared logins, a photo library still syncing to two devices, location sharing left switched on from a family plan. Clearing those out before you install a dating app is quicker than untangling them afterwards.
Your profile reads differently too. A photo taken on your own front verandah tells a stranger very little and tells someone who has stood there before exactly where you are living now. Naming your suburb in a bio works the same way. Judge each detail by what it gives to a person who already knows your name.
If the home network was set up by your former partner, change the password on it. That is a household admin job nobody thinks to put on the list.
Will a VPN Stop Matches Seeing How Far Away I Am?
No. That number is calculated from the location permission you gave the app, so setting location to approximate is what blunts it. A VPN changes the address sites and apps receive, which is a separate layer.
Do Dating Apps Sell My Data?
Major platforms pass profile and usage data to advertising partners. The opt-out for personalised advertising sits in the app’s privacy settings, and it is switched on by default when you sign up.
Should I Use My Real Name on a Dating App?
Use your given name. A surname combined with one recognisable photo or a workplace is usually enough for someone to reach an address, and it adds nothing to your matches.
Is It Safe to Use Dating Apps on Café Wi-Fi?
Whoever runs that network can see which services your phone opens. With a VPN on, they see one encrypted connection instead.
Is a Free VPN Enough for This?
For changing the address apps receive, yes. What matters is whether the provider is clear about what it records — X-VPN’s no-logs policy was independently audited in 2026.
Three things decide what a dating app gives away about you. The distance comes from a permission. The address comes from your connection. Everything else comes from what you chose to put in the profile.
Two of those are settings you can change in ten minutes. The third takes longer, because it is a judgement rather than a switch.
