Fraud: 1)Barrie Police urge caution after recent thefts linked to online transactions; 2) Scam involving caller impersonating a Barrie police officer; 3)Is this man for real? The perils of trying to detect AI use while online dating

1)Barrie Police urge caution after recent thefts linked to online transactions

Courtesy Barrie360.com

By Julius Hern, February 27, 2026

After multiple recent thefts linked to private transactions, Barrie Police is offering safety tips for those meeting unknown people.

Police say two recent incidents resulted in an electronic tablet that was for sale being stolen while the sellers were distracted during the transaction process.

In one incident, a female attended the seller’s residence and appeared to complete an e-transfer payment in exchange for the device, which was later discovered to be fraudulent. Moments later, a male suspect arrived, grabbed the device, and fled with the female suspect to a waiting vehicle driven by a third person.

In a release issued Friday, Barrie Police say they encourage residents to use the parking lot of its headquarters as a secure, public place to meet. Alternatively, the next best option would be a well-lit busy public place.

They also encourage vigilance, and to conduct transactions during daylight hours and avoid meeting alone when possible.

“Ultimately, your safety is not worth the value of any item you are selling,” Barrie Police said. “If a situation feels suspicious or escalates, do not attempt to physically prevent a theft or confront suspects. No amount of money or property is worth risking your personal safety. Instead, prioritize your well-being and report the incident to police as soon as possible.”

2) Scam involving caller impersonating a Barrie police officer

Courtesy Barrie360.com

By Ian MacLennan, February 25, 2026

A new scam is making the rounds.

This one involves a male caller claiming to be a Barrie police officer who contacts victims about suspicious activity with their bank accounts.

‘In each case, the victims were pressured to provide additional personal and financial information. When they refused, the caller warned that any resulting financial losses would not be covered by their bank if they didn’t cooperate,” police said in a news release.

In one instance, an individual received an email containing a fake police badge and identification card in an attempt to make the scam appear legitimate.

The fraudulent badge was poorly produced, the news release stated, and contained several obvious red flags, including a crest that does not match the official Barrie Police Service crest. As well, the image was sent from a free email service provider. All Barrie Police Service members have BarriePolice.ca email addresses.

If you are unsure whether a caller is a legitimate Barrie Police member:

Advise the caller that you will hang up and contact the Barrie Police Service directly through the non-emergency line.

Call the official non-emergency number at 705-725-7025 and follow the prompts to be connected to the officer by name.

If the call is legitimate, a Barrie Police Service officer will be easily reachable through official channels.

Barrie police remind residents to:

Never click on suspicious links or open attachments from unknown email addresses.

Never provide personal or financial information to unknown callers.

Do not be afraid to say no — scammers often create a false sense of urgency and demand secrecy.

If you suspect you may be a target of fraud or are a victim of fraud, call the Barrie Police Service Fraud Unit at 705-725-7025, or report the fraud online.

3)Is this man for real? The perils of trying to detect AI use while online dating

Courtesy Barrie360 and Canadian Press

By Nicole Thompson, Feb. 19, 2026.

Sometimes when Nikita Kokal scrolls through a dating app, she’ll match with someone solely to ask if they used artificial intelligence to craft their profile.

She looks for hallmarks of ChatGPT — em dashes, lists of three items and emotionless writing, for example.

She sees it all the time, she says. People have got used to using AI to help them communicate since the technology is so readily available, and there’s a new crop of AI-powered applications designed specifically to fill out dating profiles and generate conversations.

“I don’t think we should be using AI to write and find our voice, especially in the early days of dating — actually at any stage, really, of dating. For me, I find that to be an absolute non-starter,” she says.

The 32-year-old from Burlington, Ont., says AI-generated conversation starters feel inauthentic and counterproductive.

“We should be using AI for breakthroughs in science and understanding dolphin patterns and accelerating mathematical models,” she says.

Instead, people are using it like a cheat code for interpersonal relationships. She says one man who matched with her asked a question that read “like a robot had sent it.”

She asked him whether he’d used AI to write it, and he told her no.

“And again, he gave me this emotionless response. And then I took the whole thing and I ran it through a ChatGPT checker, and it was like this message was definitely — with 80 per cent confidence — written with AI,” she says.

Christopher Dietzel, a researcher with the Digital Intimacy, Gender & Sexuality Lab at Concordia University, is in the early stages of studying the use of artificial intelligence in dating apps.

“We’re looking first at the features — looking at the AI technology itself to understand how it’s being marketed, the kind of stories that are being sold to the public about the promises of AI in terms of what’s possible, how it might optimize dating, how it may make relationships more efficient or more effective,” he says.

In addition to third-party applications such as RIZZ and Wingman, some brand-name dating apps such as Hinge and Tinder have integrated the technology into their product.

Hinge, for example, uses AI to suggest changes to a user’s profile. It doesn’t tell them what to say, but it might urge a user to “try a small change” or “go a little deeper” with the details they include.

And in the United States, it’s introduced a feature called “Convo Starters,” which looks at a prospective match’s profile and suggests a topic to start the conversation with.

Likewise, Tinder uses AI to recommend people it believes might be compatible with users based on information its gleaned from their profiles and app use. In Australia, the app has introduced a feature that takes it a step further, peeking into users’ camera rolls (with permission) to try to learn even more about them.

And Grindr, a hookup app geared toward gay men, recently introduced a $500-per-month premium tier called Edge, which offers recaps of “meaningful chats and missed connections,” and shares “insights” about other users’ profiles, including what types of people they’re most likely to match with.

While it’s not clear exactly how many people are using these features or the third-party AI apps, Dietzel says their continued existence is evidence that there’s a market for them.

The second phase of his study will involve talking to people who use AI while online dating to understand their experiences.

He’s cautious not to villainize the use of artificial intelligence in general, saying it can have positive applications as well as negative.

“For disabled people, for folks who are neurodivergent, who have physical difficulties, like if they deal with chronic pain, there’s a lot of opportunities here for AI to come in and assist in this experience to make it more enjoyable or easier,” he says.

That might look like AI recommending accessible date locations or flagging a user’s potentially dangerous behaviour targeting marginalized groups.

But when it comes to AI-assisted profiles and conversations, Dietzel is a bit more skeptical.

“What are our expectations with all of this?” he says. “The conversation that you have online might be a little bit faster or you can … have more matches or you can manage more conversations. But then what do you do with that? How does that actually turn into a solid, real, deep relationship?”

Treena Orchard, an anthropology professor at Western University, is skeptical about dating apps in general.

The author of “Sticky, Sexy, Sad: Swipe Culture and the Darker Side of Dating Apps” says dating app companies seem to be using AI to try to solve a problem that dating apps created — so-called swipe fatigue.

“It seems to be a sign that the basic structure of the dating app system and design isn’t working all that well,” she says. “Because why would we need AI if it was already working? So that gives us a clue to the unwillingness in some regards of dating app designers to do more of an overhaul of their design.”

She says the industry is trying to take advantage of “the desire for love” and human connection. While the sheer number of available options on dating apps seems like a feature, she says it can actually make it harder to find a partner — by design, she argues, since the apps rely on users coming back.

Orchard says designers and users alike seem to be treating AI as an easy fix, when what they need is a rethink.

“It’s part of the way that we are seduced by technology,” she says. “Technology is consistently represented as efficient, as fast, as altruistic. Oh, it’ll do the work for you. There’s an app for that. There’s very little critical reflection on, what does this mean for the project of being human when we outsource all of this stuff?”

As for Kokal, the proliferation of AI has changed her habits. She’s now drawn to traits that might have previously been a turnoff, like a strange writing style.

“They put everything in lowercase, the punctuation is weird. And I’m like, oh, I actually respect that. Your writing is unique and different, even though it’s not grammatically correct.”