Tinder wants to offer proof of identity verification worldwide

Tinder wants to make it possible for users worldwide to verify themselves with an identity document. For now, this is only possible in Japan. The dating app hopes that users will be open to this themselves and says that it will be voluntary for the time being.

ID verification will be available to users worldwide in the coming quarters, writes Tinder. What exactly that will look like and which documents users can use for verification is not yet clear. Tinder says it takes expert recommendations and user input into account. For each country, local legislation will be examined and which documents are ‘most suitable’.

According to Tinder, ID verification will be voluntary for now, unless local law dictates otherwise. The company behind the app claims that the experience-based verification method “will evolve to ensure a fair, inclusive, and privacy-friendly way of ID verification.”

A spokesman for Tinder says to TechCrunch that ID verification will be used to check if a user is registered as a sex offender, in areas where it is possible to look it up. Tinder already does this with the credit card information the company gets when users make payments in the app.

In 2019, ID verification was introduced on Tinder in Japan. Users from the age of eighteen must upload an image of their passport, driver’s license or Health ID. Tinder says it uses insights from Japan when deciding whether to roll out the option globally. The dating app wants to verify users in the context of security.

Earlier this year, Tinder introduced a partnership with non-profit organization Garbo for background checks. American Tinder users can thus perform a background check of their matches in the future. That feature is expected later this year.