George Mason University assistant professor Sanchari Das and King’s College London associate professor Ruba Abu-Salma received a $100,000 Google Academic Research Award last month for their research project to protect seniors from romance scams.
The project aims to investigate and protect older adults from artificial intelligence romance scams by creating education tools. The study will be based on a three-phase, multi-national study spanning 13 countries.
In a romance scam, the scammer creates a fake identity online to build a romantic connection with the victim. They then use that connection to manipulate their victim and extort money. With its growing ability to generate images and sound, romance scammers often use artificial intelligence to carry out scams.
Adults 60 and older were 10 percent more likely to report being a victim of a romance scam than younger adults, the Federal Trade Commission found in a 2023–2024 study. Many reported that their romantic interest convinced them to invest in fake cryptocurrency.
Das said in an article from George Mason University that she learned that a majority of older-adult scams were coming from romance scams. And victims often felt like the topic was too stigmatized to reach out for help. To address these risks, Das and Abu-Salma are focusing their research on building educational tools that older adults can use to avoid falling victim to these scams.
The first phase of Das and Abu-Salma’s project will consist of analyzing data from focus groups and surveys of older adults, focusing on countries with higher use of dating apps. In the second phase of the project, Das and Abu-Salma will develop educational safety materials in order to move on to the third phase, where they will hold in-person workshops in the United States and the United Kingdom to edit, improve, and share these materials.
Feature image, stock.adobe.com
