Tinder announced it to USA, UK, Brazil and Mexico. It’s part of an ongoing effort to reduce the number of catfish swimming around the old dating pool. The new system requires users to take a video selfie and upload a valid driver’s license or passport.
Tinder has been around for a long time as part of a verification process that provides a blue tick to indicate its correctness. So the passport and driver’s license are new. After you upload your ID, Tinder will check if it matches your video selfies and profile pictures. It will also look at the date of birth on your license or passport to confirm your age.
If the idea of uploading your ID to a dating app makes you cringe, you can still get verified with just a video selfie. However, your profile will get a blue camera icon instead of a blue icon.
Tinder began testing this system in New Zealand and Australia last year, and given the wider rollout, it must have worked well. The updated verification tool will arrive in the UK and Brazil in the spring, and in the US and Mexico in the summer. In other words, the catfish has only a few months left to do its job. This includes you,
This is not to be confused with Tinder’s recently abandoned background check feature, which was backed by the nonprofit Garbo. Tinder and Garbo teamed up to provide an in-app background check tool in 2019 to screen users for violent histories.
Garbo is over Match Group after disagreements over fees and how best to use the tool. Garbo’s CEO said he would prefer to leave the partnership rather than allow “Garbo’s vision to be compromised and become part of the marketing objectives of large corporations.”
