Tinder will let you run a background check on matches to screen for past crimes and violence
- Match Group invested in background-check non-profit Garbo and will use its technology on dating apps.
- Tinder will be the first app to have the service, which is expected to come later this year.
- You'll need a date's last name and phone number to run a background check.
Tinder will soon launch a background-check function on its platform, a move to guard users against gender-based violence, according to a March 15 press release.
Match Group, the company that owns dating platforms like Tinder, Match.com, and Plenty of Fish, announced it invested in background check non-profit Garbo and will implement its technology on Tinder, and then its other dating services, later this year. Tinder did not disclose a specific date for the rollout.
The partnership could make Tinder, a dating app that's skirted screening measures for its free services in the past, a safer place for singles. In December 2019, Match Group executives told ProPublica reporters "there are definitely registered sex offenders on our free products," after the outlet published an investigation into the company's screening measures. At the time, Match group said it only screens sex offenders on its paid platforms, not its free ones, Insider previously reported.
In January 2020, Tinder added photo verification, in-app safety check-ins during dates, and a built-in panic button to its platform. The services are free, but are only available in the US.
Unlike these features, Garbo will come at a price for users. Tinder said it wants to make the background checks affordable and will work with Garbo to do so, but has yet to reveal a price point, The Verge reported.
You need your date's phone number and last name to use the tool
Kathryn Kosmides founded Garbo in 2018 after experiencing gender-based violence. It uses public records and reports of arrests, harassment, restraining orders, and other violent crimes to generate low-cost background checks.
To complete a Garbo background check on your dating-app match, you'll need their phone number and last name.
Though Match group has this information, it's something you'll have to ask your potential date yourself, according to The Verge. That's because Match can't give one user's data to another user for privacy reasons.
Therapists previously told Insider a preliminary internet search on a match before an in-person date is always a good idea for safety and compatibility reasons.
Drug-possession charges won't be part of the background checks
As of February, Garbo doesn't screen for drug possession charges. In a press release, Garbo said it wanted to "distance" itself from a "criminal justice system has been used to monitor substance possession in a way that promotes systemic inequality for decades."
Black people are disproportionately arrested for substance possession, despite using drugs at similar rates to white people.