Match Group pauses background checks on Tinder and other dating apps


Garbo, a nonprofit organization that provided background checks to users of some of Match Group’s apps, is ending its partnership with the company, as reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal. As a result, Garbo will be shutting down its consumer-facing business and Match will be pausing its background checks in the affected apps.
Match Group first started offering background checks on Tinder in 2021 before rolling it out to its other dating apps, including Match and Stir, last year. The integration let users run a limited number of free background checks on a potential date using just their last name and phone number, allowing users to see public reports about violence, past arrests, convictions, and restraining orders.
While it’s not clear what went wrong between the two companies, Garbo appears to place the blame on Match Group. In a post on Garbo’s blog, founder Kathryn Kosmides says she made the decision to shut down the service after facing “a lack of support and real initiative from online platforms” as well as “continuous harassment and threats by bad actors on these platforms.”
“Most social networks, dating apps and online platforms care more about the bottom-line”
According to the Journal, there were also some internal conflicts about how the background checks should work. While Match Group reportedly wanted to display a badge on people’s Tinder profiles to signal they had clean criminal histories, Kosmides disagreed, telling the Journal, “You can’t white-list someone or give them a ‘good guy, bad guy’ identity verification.” The Journal also points out that Tinder never really advertised the background checks to its users and that it was never made available within the Tinder app on iOS.
“It’s become clear that most online platforms aren’t legitimately committed to trust and safety for their users,” Kosmides says. “There are some great companies that do take our mission to heart, but the sad reality is that most social networks, dating apps and online platforms care more about the bottom-line than they care about you.”
The partnership’s discontinuation comes almost one year after Tracey Breeden, Match Group’s first head of safety and social advocacy who also spearheaded the partnership with Garbo, left the company. Match Group says it has plans to find a new background check provider. Meanwhile, Garbo will remain a 501c3 nonprofit organization and is shifting its focus toward creating tools to help protect users “from gender-based violence and other interpersonal harms in the digital age.”
“While we are disappointed that we were unable to come to an agreement, we are in advanced conversations with alternate providers and will announce a new partnership soon,” Match group spokesperson Kayla Whaling tells The Verge. “We are committed to continuously investing and building industry-leading features that give users more information and control over who they choose to connect with on our platforms.”
Update August 17th, 5:35PM ET: Clarified in the headline that Match Group is pausing background checks in Tinder and other apps.
Correction August 17th, 8:54PM ET: A previous version of this article implied that Match ended the relationship. We regret the error.
Garbo, a nonprofit organization that provided background checks to users of some of Match Group’s apps, is ending its partnership with the company, as reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal. As a result, Garbo will be shutting down its consumer-facing business and Match will be pausing its background checks…
Recent Posts
- Fortnite’s new season has heists, pickles, and Cowboy Bebop
- The best microSD cards in 2025
- I tried this new online AI agent, and I can’t believe how good Convergence AI’s Proxy 1.0 is at completing multiple online tasks simultaneously
- I cannot describe how strange Elon Musk’s CPAC appearance was
- Over a million clinical records exposed in data breach
Archives
- February 2025
- January 2025
- December 2024
- November 2024
- October 2024
- September 2024
- August 2024
- July 2024
- June 2024
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- September 2018
- October 2017
- December 2011
- August 2010