What Relationship Surveillance Tools Reveal About Modern Relationships

A new AI tool called CheatEye AI is making waves online. Its promise? Upload a photo of your partner and it will scan Tinder to check if they have an active profile. The tool is marketed as “relationship insurance”—a way to catch a cheating partner with a single image.

But let’s be clear: this isn’t just about confirming suspicions. It’s about how we navigate trust, technology, and control in modern relationships.

The Rise of Relationship Surveillance

CheatEye AI uses facial recognition to scan millions of dating profiles and match them with an uploaded photo. The tool taps into anxiety with headlines like:

“Is he still on dating apps?”

“Find out if she’s cheating.”

It preys on suspicion and markets surveillance as a solution to relationship problems. But what it really does is raise red flags about consent, privacy, and emotional safety.

When Curiosity Becomes Control

This kind of technology opens up major opportunities for misuse:

• Ex-partners monitoring someone’s dating activity after a breakup

• Stalkers or abusers tracking people online without their knowledge

• Anyone secretly checking up on crushes, friends, or strangers

CheatEye isn’t alone. Tools like PimEyes let users upload a face and instantly find every publicly available image of that person online. These tools normalize a culture of surveillance disguised as self-protection.

When we turn to AI tools to "confirm loyalty," it reveals a deeper issue—a breakdown of trust and a growing reliance on tech to avoid emotional labor and uncomfortable conversations in healthy relationships.

This moment offers a chance to pause and ask: What does trust look like in a digital world?

Starting the Converstation

We can use this tech as a way to drive conversations about trust, and funnel AI into the conversations we should be having about healthy relationships in the digital age:

• Is it ever okay to use AI to confirm a suspicion about a partner?

• What are the emotional and ethical consequences of doing so?

• What does it say about a relationship if surveillance is the go-to move?

• How would you feel if your partner ran your face through a search tool?

What are some other questions we could ask? We’d love to hear from you!