TRENTON, NJ – New Jersey State Senate bill s-1977, or “Internet Dating Safety Act,” has been approved unanimously by the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee and will now be considered by the full NJ Senate.The bill, sponsored by Senate President Richard J. Codey (D-Essex), would require “Internet dating services to provide notice whether the service conducts criminal background screenings” and provide “safety awareness notification that includes, at minimum, a list and description of safety measures reasonably designed to increase awareness of safer dating practices as determined by the service.”

The examples of such “safety awareness notifications” specified in the bill are as follows:

• “Anyone who is able to commit identity theft can also falsify a dating profile.”
• “There is no substitute for acting with caution when communicating with any stranger who wants to meet you.”
• “Never include your last name, e-mail address, home address, phone number, place of work, or any other identifying information in your Internet profile or initial e-mail messages. Stop communicating with anyone who pressures you for personal or financial information or attempts in any way to trick you into revealing it.”
• “If you choose to have a face-to-face meeting with another member, always tell someone in your family or a friend where you are going and when you will return. Never agree to be picked up at your home. Always provide your own transportation to and from your date and meet in a public place with many people around.”

Under the bill, internet dating services that do not conduct criminal background checks will be required to disclose, “clearly and conspicuously, to all New Jersey members that the Internet dating service does not conduct criminal background screenings.”

The bill further requires that such disclosure be provided “when an electronic mail message is sent or received by a New Jersey member, on the profile describing a member to a New Jersey member, and on the web-site pages of the Internet dating service used when a New Jersey member signs up.”

Under the current language of the bill, the required disclaimer must be presented in “bold, capital letters in at least 12-point type.”

Dating sites that do conduct criminal background checks on members also would be required to include disclosure statements under the bill. In its current language, S-1977 states that services that do conduct background checks “shall disclose, clearly and conspicuously, to all New Jersey members that the Internet dating service conducts a criminal background screening on each member prior to permitting a New Jersey member to communicate with another member. The disclosure shall be provided on the website pages used when a New Jersey member signs up.”

The text of S-1977 also spells out the NJ legislature’s intent in crafting the legislation, stating that the “The Legislature finds and declares… Residents of this State need to be informed of the potential risks of participating in Internet dating services. There is a public safety need to disclose whether criminal history background screenings have been performed and to increase public awareness of the possible risks associated with Internet dating activities.”

If passed, violations of the Internet Dating Safety Act, including failure to disclose that background checks are performed and falsely indicating that a site conducts criminal background checks, would be punishable by a civil penalty of “not less than $10,000 for each day during which a violation occurs.”

The bill is not the first of its kind; according to a statement that accompanies the text of the bill, S-1977 is modeled after the Florida Internet Dating Safety Awareness Act, a law passed in Florida last year. Michigan and Texas each passed similar laws in 2005.