Source: Courtesy of Tinder / Tinder
Tinder is adding an extra layer of protection to its app for users. This week, the dating site’s parent company, Match Group Inc, announced that it would provide users the ability to run a background check on their prospective matches. The new feature will look through public records to search for prior convictions or arrests and will also notify people if their match has ever been registered as a sex offender. Match Group Inc, which also owns other popular dating apps like Hinge and OkCupid, said they hope the new tool will allow Tinder users “more transparency and information about whomever they connect with,” CNN noted.
Beginning this week, the background check tool will appear in the app’s safety center. While the first two requested checks will be free, users will be charged a $2.50 fee for every other additional query.
Match Group Inc’s new initiative was launched in collaboration with Garbo, a nonprofit organization that conducts background checks “focused on gender-based violence awareness and prevention.”
Kathryn Kosmides, the founder of Garbo, told Insider that the goal of the new feature was to help educate people on how to minimize the risk of danger when using online dating apps.
“It’s the question of, what should be public and what should be private?” she explained. “And when it comes to safety information, information that can help me make a more informed, personal safety decision, that should be public. I should be able to easily access that information.”
On the other hand, Nicole Bedera, a sociologist exploring sexual violence who has previously worked with victims of sexual abuse, argued that Tinder’s new tool might give users a false sense of security.
“We know that sexual violence is so rarely reported and we know that convictions are so incredibly rare even when it is reported,” Nicole Bedera, a sociologist who has researched sexual violence and who has previously worked as a victim advocate, told CNN. “You’re going to be missing a lot of really dangerous people through using criminal records and background checks as a proxy for safety. It can create this false sense of safety when it shouldn’t be there.”
