Is It Safe to Send My Passport to Someone I'm Dating Online?

Romance fraud is one of the largest single fraud categories Action Fraud and the City of London Police track. In the 2024/25 financial year, UK victims reported losing £106 million across roughly 8,800 cases, with an average loss per victim of around £11,200. Reports of romance fraud have grown nearly 10% year on year. Anyone using a dating app or social platform to meet new people is a potential target.

The pattern most people associate with romance scams is the eventual money request — an emergency, a stuck investment, a plane ticket to come and visit. But money is not always the first ask. A growing variant pivots earlier in the conversation and goes for documents rather than cash: a passport copy, a driving licence photo, a utility bill, sometimes proof of bank account. The reasons offered sound plausible (visa support, a video-call platform’s verification, “so I know you’re real”), and because identity documents feel less significant than money in the moment, victims send them. Those documents then get sold on, used to open accounts in the victim’s name, or used to verify the scammer’s fake identities for the next victim.

The 50–59 age group accounts for the largest share of total losses (over £22 million in 2024/25), but no age group is exempt. Men and women report at roughly equal rates. The single strongest predictor of being targeted is being newly active on a dating platform after a life change — divorce, bereavement, redundancy. Scammers actively look for profiles that signal it.

If you have not met this person in real life, the ask itself is the warning sign — not the reason attached to it. The reasons fraudsters give are designed to feel reasonable in the moment. The most common scripts:

1. “The dating app says we need to verify each other’s ID before video chat.” No legitimate dating app routes ID verification through another user. Apps that do offer verification (Tinder, Hinge, Bumble) handle it internally with selfie checks. Nothing on a real verification flow requires you to send your passport to another person on the app.
2. “I need your passport scan to book your flight / hotel / visit.” Booking flights and hotels in the UK does not require the traveller’s passport scan in advance; you give passport details at the airport or check-in. Anyone genuinely paying for your travel only needs your full name and date of birth.
3. “My employer / oil rig / military deployment needs my partner’s ID for security clearance.” No real employer, oil company, or military unit conducts vetting of personal partners through random document scans sent over WhatsApp. This script appears in essentially every long-form romance-fraud case Action Fraud tracks.
4. “I need to send you money — what’s your bank account / send me a bank statement?” A request to send money usually only requires your name, sort code, and account number — never a passport copy, full statement, or driving licence. If a stranger needs more than that to send you money, it is not really money they want.
5. “Send me a photo of you holding your ID, just to be sure you’re real.” The “selfie with ID” format is the gold standard for opening fraudulent bank accounts and bypassing some Know Your Customer checks. A photo of you holding your passport is genuinely more valuable to a fraudster than the passport scan alone.
6. Crypto, investment, or “trading platform” appears in the conversation at all. The classic romance scam playbook now routinely combines emotional manipulation with a fake investment opportunity (“pig butchering”). Any pivot from chatting to “let me show you my trading platform” ends one way.

A useful sanity check: think about the most genuine partner you can imagine, in the situation the scammer is describing. They want to come and visit you. They need to send you money for something. They want to verify you’re a real person before they invest emotionally. In each case, would they ask you for a copy of your passport, or would they suggest something else?

A real partner would say “let’s do a video call”. They would send a selfie holding today’s newspaper if you wanted proof of life. They would book the flight in their own name and meet you at the airport. They would ask for your full name and sort code if they were paying you, and nothing more. They would never ask for a photo of you holding your passport because they would understand exactly what that document does when it leaves your possession.

The shortcut: if the person you are talking to gets uncomfortable, evasive, or angry when you suggest a video call instead of a document scan, that reaction is the answer. A genuine partner has no problem with a video call. A scammer cannot do one.

If you have realised the person you are talking to is probably a scammer, the temptation is to confront them or demand an explanation. The fastest way to disengage with the least exposure is the opposite: stop responding, document the conversation, report, and block.

In order:

1. Screenshot everything first. The profile, the conversation, any phone numbers, any payment requests, any platform names mentioned. Once you block or report, content can disappear from the platform’s servers and from your view. Save screenshots to your phone’s photo gallery and ideally to a cloud backup.
2. Report to the platform. All major dating apps have an in-app report flow. Pick the “suspected scammer” or “asking for money / documents” category. Platform reports help the app shadow-ban the profile and identify other accounts using the same patterns.
3. Report to Action Fraud. Even if you have sent nothing yet, reports build the pattern intelligence that helps Action Fraud and the City of London Police map active networks. Phone 0300 123 2040 or use the online reporting tool. You will get a crime reference number which you should keep on file.
4. Block, then stop responding. Do not argue, do not explain, do not give the scammer the satisfaction of a goodbye message. Cutting contact removes their ability to switch tactics (the “wait, my mum’s sick, please send help” pivot is common once they sense they’ve been caught).

If you spent emotional energy on the relationship, the disengagement step is the hardest. Romance fraud works because the affection feels real even when the person on the other end isn’t. The City of London Police’s romance-fraud campaign emphasises that this isn’t a failing on the victim’s part — the manipulation is professional and methodical, often run by organised crime groups with playbooks. If you are working through it, the Victim Support charity offers free, confidential help.

If you have already sent your passport, driving licence, or other ID to someone who turned out to be a scammer, the documents themselves cannot be recalled — but you can limit what the scammer is able to do with them.

What to do, in order:

1. Within the hour. Screenshot everything (see section 4), report to the platform, report to Action Fraud. If you sent bank or card details, call your bank’s fraud line and ask them to put a marker on your accounts and consider re-issuing cards.
2. Within 24 hours. Check your credit report (free at Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion) for any application or account you didn’t make. If your passport was sent, call HM Passport Office’s general line (0300 222 0000) and ask whether you can flag the document as exposed. Driving-licence equivalent: DVLA on 0300 790 6801.
3. Within the week. Set up fraud alerts at all three credit agencies and turn on two-factor authentication for your banking, primary email, and any other account using your identity documents as a verification field. Consider CIFAS Protective Registration (£30 for two years) — it places a marker on your credit file that forces lenders to run extra checks on any application made in your name.
4. Ongoing. Review your credit file every few weeks for the next six months at least. Stolen identity documents can be used quickly or sold on and resurface years later, so don’t assume the danger has passed just because nothing has happened in the first month.

If you also sent money, the steps for that are different and time-critical — call your bank’s fraud line first thing and request a recall under the Authorised Push Payment fraud rules. The faster the recall, the higher the chance of recovery before the funds move out of the UK banking system.