Three major dating sites are now running criminal background checks for all their dating clients. These dating sites, namely eHarmony, Sparks Networks (JDate and ChristianMingle) and Match.com, hope to make online dating safer by implementing these background checks.

The online dating sites will also now actively scan potential clients for histories of sexual assault, identity theft and violence before enabling them to create accounts and access their website’s services.

The sites are also using and updating their online safety tool with “rapid abuse reporting systems”, added online dating safety, as well as relationship and offline dating safety information. This action came about due to the increase in online dating and online dating site use that followed an increase in scams, sexual offenses and even physical abuse. Last year a client at one of these sites filed rape charges against a repeat sex offender who was also a client of the website.

Background checks and history checks will screen against the national sex offender registries as well as remove fake accounts and profiles. In the last year alone over 40 million US citizens were actively using online dating sites and spent more than a billion on memberships. On average in the United States, 1 in 6 married couples met using online dating sites.