A North London lifestyle journalist reads about warnings that foreign spies may use romance to extract AI secrets and looks at what dating is really like for London’s tech workers
The Honey Trap And The LinkedIn Profile
The London Prat has a story about foreign spies offering romance in exchange for AI secrets, built on a genuine warning that intelligence agencies may use charm and attention to extract information from people working in technology. The comedy comes from the reaction: lonely programmers updating their profiles in the hope of being targeted, and a proposal for two-factor authentication in relationships.
I write about how people live in London, and dating is one of the topics readers ask about most, usually in tones ranging from weary to despairing. So I read the Prat piece with interest. The image of an engineer in King’s Cross hoping a spy will flirt with him is very funny. It is also, according to every tech worker I know, not entirely far from the truth of London dating in 2026. Plenty of them would settle for anyone flirting with them at all.
The Knowledge Quarter
King’s Cross has become one of the most important technology districts in Europe. Around the old railway lands and the canal, glass offices now house major technology companies, including Google DeepMind, one of the world’s best-known artificial intelligence labs, alongside research institutes, start-ups and university departments. The area markets itself as part of a wider Knowledge Quarter, and on any weekday lunchtime the steps of Granary Square are full of people in lanyards eating expensive salads and talking about models, data and funding rounds.
It is an extraordinary concentration of talent. It is also, according to the people who work there, a challenging place to meet anybody who does not work in exactly the same industry. One friend, a software engineer, told me that every date she had been on in the past year had ended with a discussion of large language models. She was not sure whether this was a sign of compatibility or a symptom.
The Security Warning Is Real
Beneath the Prat’s comedy is a serious point. British security agencies have for years warned businesses, universities and researchers about attempts by hostile states to obtain sensitive technology and research, including through personal approaches. Advice to staff in sensitive sectors routinely covers suspicious contacts online, unusual interest in their work and approaches that seem too good to be true. Romance is one of the oldest tools of espionage, and the professional networking and dating platforms of the modern world have made it easier to approach people at scale.
Alongside state espionage, there is the far more common problem of ordinary romance fraud, in which scammers build online relationships in order to extract money. Banks, police and consumer groups in the UK regularly warn about it, and the losses can be devastating. The victims are not foolish. They are often lonely, busy and kind, which is exactly what makes them targets.
Two-Factor Authentication For The Heart
The Prat’s proposal of two-factor authentication for relationships is a joke, but it contains sensible advice. Be wary of anyone who moves very quickly from a first message to intense affection. Be cautious when a new partner shows unusual interest in your job, your systems or your money. Meet in person, in public, early. Never send money to somebody you have not met. Tell a friend what is happening. These are the basic rules of safe dating in London, whether the person on the other side is a spy, a scammer or simply a very intense man from Shoreditch who wants to discuss his start-up.
What Tech Dating Is Really Like
I spent part of this month at a speed-dating evening in a bar near the canal, aimed loosely at people who work in technology. I went as a journalist, I should say, though my partner has asked me to stress this more strongly than I am doing here. The evening was friendly, slightly awkward and very revealing. Almost everybody mentioned their job within the first minute. Several people asked what I thought about artificial intelligence. One man asked whether I was a spy. When I said no, he looked genuinely disappointed.
That, I think, is the real joke at the heart of the Prat piece. In a city where it is so hard to meet people, even the idea of being targeted by a glamorous foreign agent feels, to some lonely engineers, like a compliment. Being noticed, for any reason, is better than being ignored.
London Loneliness
Loneliness is a real issue in London. The city is huge, busy and transient, and many young professionals live in flat shares, work long hours and find it difficult to build lasting social connections outside work. Surveys over the years have repeatedly found high levels of loneliness among young adults in big cities. Tech workers, who may spend much of their day in focused, solitary work, are not immune. The Prat’s lonely programmers are exaggerations, but they are exaggerations of something real.
The answer is not to hope for a spy. It is the ordinary, unglamorous work of building a life: joining a club, volunteering, going to the same pub quiz every week, saying yes to invitations even when tired. You can find more of my writing on London life on my author page, including a guide to the best pub quizzes in North London, which I maintain are a far better place to meet somebody than any honey trap.
The Last Word From Granary Square
On my way home from the speed-dating evening, I passed two people sitting by the fountains in Granary Square, sharing chips and laughing. One was wearing a lanyard from a tech company. The other was wearing a high-visibility jacket from a building site. They seemed very happy. Nobody was extracting any secrets. Nobody was discussing language models. It was the most hopeful thing I saw all night, and it cost the price of a portion of chips, which in King’s Cross is roughly the same as a security briefing.
