The popular dating app Tinder is trying to make its users feel safer when meeting up in person after various romance scams have made headlines recently.
Starting this week the dating app will provide users with a background check tool that will be built into the app's Safety Center. Tinder's parent company, Match Group, will partner with the non profit background check provider Garbo to provide the checks, CNN reported.
Garbo focuses on gender-based violence awareness and prevention.
As TechCrunch reports, when users go into the app they will be then directed to the Garbo website if they're trying to get a background check. Users will need their match's first name and phone number to start the process. If no results are returned, the app will then ask for more information like the person's age.
A 2019 investigative report from ProPublica and Columbia Journalism Investigationsfound that sexual predators proliferated on match-style dating apps. Romance scams have also spiked in recent months during the pandemic.
The recent popularity of the Netflix documentary "The Tinder Swindler" has also raised eyebrows, after the story of a man named Simon Leviev gained massive popularity. Leviev was able to scam multiple women in various countries out of thousands of dollars, and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars, and was able to get away with his crimes until he was finally blocked from using the popular dating app.
