We’ve all been there. You meet someone new on a dating app, start to envision a life together, only to wonder: Is the person actually who they say they are?
It’s an experience that has led many singles, sometimes out of concern or just genuine curiosity, to prescreen dates by tracing their digital footprint: scanning social media posts, browsing their LinkedIn profile for clues.
The platform Stud or Dud—not to be confused with stud’s use as a slang term for a masculine-presenting Black lesbian—wants to introduce even more transparency into that part of the dating process. According to its website, the platform uses “public records, publicly available information, and other permitted sources” to create a profile of your potential match. It launched today in the US and was created by the company behind PeopleFinders.com, the online data broker service that collects public records from multiple sources and makes them searchable to help clients locate individuals or run background reports.
Intended to help daters make informed decisions about the people in their life, like identifying possible warning signs, Stud or Dud aggregates courthouse documents, bankruptcy filings, tax liens, pre-foreclosure data, phone directories, social media posts, and more to create a snapshot of your potential suitor’s personal life. All daters need is the person’s name or phone number to run a search. The aggregated data is presented in a single report, where it is divided into four categories: finances, property or assets owned, employment history, and criminal background. Each report comes with an AI-generated overview.
The tool will also earmark what it determines to be red or green flags about the person. Criminal records—a DUI or time spent in prison, for example—signal a red flag, but PeopleFinders CEO Amber Higgins encourages users not to pass judgement even if the site does.
“We give enough information for the user to determine, is that really a red flag for them or not? And that all kind of speaks to your lifestyle expectations.” In this sense, the reports lean prescriptive since the company suggests what safety details to consider, calling attention to things like how many times you’ve been evicted or if your name is on a sex offender registry. There is also an AI assistant (“the dating detective”) users can chat with when they want more tips for first dates or general advice.
According to the company, one of the biggest historical use cases of PeopleFinders.com has been for online dating safety.
“Modern dating has changed dramatically, and the tools people have used to establish trust haven’t kept pace,” Higgins says. “People are meeting across dating apps, social media, DMs. They have very little context of who's actually on the other side.”
While some might consider that the whole point of dating—the early talking stages, however awkward, are all about navigating the unknown when getting to know someone—Higgins adds that the site, which requires a subscription, was built to provide additional context on a potential match. She recommends that people use it as a “sidekick” to the apps. “This is meant to confirm your trust about a dating profile.”
Even as online vetting is a crucial safety measure and fully part of the modern dating process—daters in San Francisco, for example, lost more than $40 million to romance scams in 2025, according to the FBI—there also seem to be legitimate opportunities for bad actors to exploit the information gathered from the site. The platform assumes that the person doing the searching is the one at risk, but that may not always be the case.
“Obviously, there are a lot of problems with a site like this, starting with its potential use by stalkers,” says Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity for digital privacy nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation. After running her own tests with different names and numbers, she adds that, “the site did not seem to be good at the very thing it is claiming to do well: flag potentially dangerous partners.”
The data broker industry that powers people-search websites is largely unregulated, since the US lacks comprehensive digital privacy laws. In addition to normalizing surveillance, these people-search sites have the potential to cause real harm; search results can contain false or outdated information that, if taken at face value by the institution running the search, can lead to people not being able to secure housing, a job, or public benefits.
Also, a report from Stud or Dud could be entirely clean and tell you nothing about whether someone poses a genuine threat. Sexual violence is one of the most underreported crimes in the US, with only a fraction of assaults being reported to the police or making it to the courts.
Higgins tells WIRED that any tool involving personal information has to be designed to be used responsibly, but no report can guarantee that someone is safe. “We provide the signals, clues, but ultimately it does not eliminate the need to take your normal precautions,” she says. She believes women will be the strongest early adopters, given that they carry more of a personal safety burden when meeting a new acquaintance.
Only 48 percent of US adults think online dating is safe, and women are more likely than men to say dating apps are dangerous, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, with six in 10 Americans saying companies should require background checks before users can create a dating profile.
“Policing potential dates is intertwined with calls for surveillance,” says Christoper Dietzel, an assistant professor at Concordia University, who coauthored a 2026 study analyzing 30 dating apps’ safety materials, including eHarmony, Scruff, Bumble, and Grindr. “Dating apps already tell users to Google their matches, reverse-image search their photos, and look up their phone numbers. Seeking goes as far as telling users that personal research is not creeping.”
Wanting information about a date is a human reflex; people do this all the time by asking friends for input or advice. Likewise, Facebook groups like “Are We Dating the Same Guy?” have been dependable resources for women navigating dishonest men online. And while screening potential matches has become an integral part of the dating process, Dietzel has concerns about the data being collected. According to the site, people aren’t notified about what documents are being shared, nor do they have a way of knowing whether the data on them is accurate.
When asked about the accuracy rate, Higgins says, “I don't necessarily have a percentage, but we make our best case to provide the most accurate information available. Public records can be inaccurate. Sometimes there are mistakes.”
Because of the privacy laws the company must comply with, people can request that their information be deleted off the site; doing so does not require you to sign up.
When Higgins searched my name during the demo, I feared what might pop up. Suddenly, I felt exposed. The information already exists in disparate corners of the internet, but here, for the first time, I wondered how its AI would define me. What assumptions would it make?
“Low-key vibes with a hint of wanderlust,” the summary began, which correctly identified my age and the city I live in. “No criminal or financial drama in sight. The subject seems to have moved around a bit, but hey, who doesn't love a little adventure?” When it showed that I had no property records on file—sadly, I still rent—it mentioned how “this isn’t automatically a dealbreaker,” as if my worth was tied to material possessions. There were no red flags, and though insights are helpful in providing a semblance of context, data can never color the full picture of a person.
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