- Match Group has invested in Garbo’s nonprofit background check and will use its technology in dating apps.
- Tinder will be the first application to have the service, which should arrive later this year.
- You will need a surname and phone number for a date to do a background check.
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Tinder will soon launch a background check function on its platform, a measure to protect users from 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 that it has invested in Garbo’s nonprofit background check and will implement its technology in Tinder, and then in its other dating services, still this year. Tinder did not reveal a specific release date.
The partnership could make Tinder, a dating app that has avoided 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 sex offenders registered in our free products” after the vehicle published an investigation into the company’s screening measures. At the time, the Match group said it only examines sex offenders on its paid platforms, not on free ones, Insider reported earlier.
In January 2020, Tinder added photo verification, in-app security check-ins during dates, and a panic button built into its platform. The services are free, but are only available in the USA.
Unlike these features, Garbo will have a price for users. Tinder said he wants to make background checks accessible and will work with Garbo to do so, but has not yet revealed a price point, The Verge reported.
You need the phone number and last name of the date to use the tool
Kathryn Kosmides founded Garbo in 2018 after suffering gender 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 background check on Garbo in your dating game, you will need the phone number and surname.
Although the Match group has this information, it is something that you will have to ask your potential partner, according to The Verge. This is because Match cannot provide data from one user to another for privacy reasons.
Therapists previously told Insider that a preliminary Internet search of a game before a personal encounter is always a good idea for reasons of security and compatibility.
Drug possession charges will not be part of background checks
As of February, Garbo does not screen for drug possession charges. In a press release, Garbo said he wanted to “distance himself” from a “criminal justice system that has been used to monitor substance possession in a way that has promoted systemic inequality for decades”.
Blacks are disproportionately detained for possession of substance, despite using drugs at rates similar to whites.