What Would an Effective Dating App Offender Ban Require?

The South Australian Government has announced that it intends to introduce legislation banning domestic violence and sexual offenders from using online dating platforms.

The commitment appears in the state's 2026-27 Budget. At this stage, the publicly available announcement does not explain which offenders would be covered or how platforms would be expected to identify and exclude them.

The policy direction deserves serious consideration.

People should not be knowingly exposed through dating services to individuals whose established offending history presents a defined and unacceptable risk.

But turning that objective into an effective system will require considerably more than instructing platforms to ban offenders.

Who would be covered?

The first challenge is defining eligibility for exclusion.

Would a ban apply only following conviction?

Would it include people subject to particular intervention orders, supervision arrangements or registration requirements?

Would all relevant offences be treated equally, or would the restriction depend on the nature, seriousness or recency of the conduct?

These are not minor technicalities.

They determine who loses access, for how long and through what legal process.

A credible framework would need thresholds that are clear, lawful and capable of being applied consistently.

How would platforms know?

An exclusion rule is only effective if an online account can be reliably connected to the correct person.

That raises practical questions about:

• what identity verification platforms would be required to perform;
• which government records could legally be checked;
• how frequently those checks would occur;
• how platforms would handle name changes and incomplete information;
• whether a common verification mechanism would operate across services.

Matching errors also matter.

A false match could wrongly exclude someone with a similar name or identifying information. The system would therefore require an efficient way to review and correct mistakes.

How would repeat accounts be prevented?

Removing an account is not the same as excluding a person.

An offender may attempt to return using:

• a different email address;
• another phone number;
• altered profile information;
• synthetic or stolen identity details;
• an account created through another device.

Effective enforcement would require stronger account-integrity controls than many services currently use.

It would also require careful safeguards against excessive or unnecessary collection of personal information.

The challenge is to make evasion difficult without turning every dating platform into a storehouse of sensitive identity data.

What would happen across borders?

Dating platforms commonly operate nationally or internationally, while criminal justice information is administered through different jurisdictions.

A South Australian restriction raises questions about:

• people who move interstate;
• offences recorded elsewhere in Australia;
• temporary visitors;
• platforms headquartered overseas;
• whether another state would recognise or enforce the same restriction.

A fragmented approach could produce uneven protections and substantial compliance complexity.

If similar measures expand, national coordination may become necessary.

How would the public understand the protection?

Perhaps the most important communication issue is avoiding false reassurance.

An offender-ban system can exclude people identified under its legal criteria.

It cannot establish that everyone remaining on the platform is safe.

Many people who behave abusively have no known conviction. Harmful behaviour may also emerge after an account has been approved.

Platforms should therefore avoid presenting exclusion checks as a safety clearance or character assessment.

Known-offender restrictions should sit alongside identity assurance, reporting, moderation, behavioural safeguards and safer meeting practices.

Transparency and accountability

A workable system would also need public reporting.

Platforms and governments should be able to explain:

• how many accounts were assessed;
• how many exclusions occurred;
• how many decisions were challenged;
• how often mistakes were identified;
• whether excluded individuals attempted to return;
• whether the framework was producing measurable safety benefits.

Without transparency, the public may know that a ban exists without knowing whether it is functioning.

Odasiti's position

Odasiti supports stronger, evidence-led measures that prevent dating platforms from knowingly providing access to people who meet clearly defined legal exclusion criteria.

It also recognises that no exclusion system can replace safety by design.

Identity verification, privacy controls, progressive interaction, effective reporting and safer meeting processes remain necessary because risk cannot be identified through criminal records alone.

The South Australian proposal has opened an important policy conversation.

The next step is ensuring the eventual framework is enforceable, proportionate, privacy-conscious and honest about what it can and cannot guarantee.