Tinder Now Enforcing Photo Verification Using Facial Recognition Software
Tired of being catfished? Try Tinder!
...Wait, what? What do you mean Elixabot, isn't Tinder full of catfish?
Well, looks like Tinder is trying to do something about that. And if we're being honest, I'm not too sure how I feel about it.
If you want to use Tinder in 2025, you now HAVE to do a facial recognition scan.
Last year, Tinder started rolling out Photo Verification which uses facial recognition technology to confirm that a user is the person in their profile photos. However now it seems what once was optional, now is mandatory. Don't want to scan your face? Sorry, guess it's time for you to delete the app.
This change is part of the platform's efforts to:
Make Tinder a safer environment
Ensure that users are who they say they are
Allow users to match and chat with verified profiles
Now, I said I was 50/50 on this and here's why:
I love that Tinder is adding more safety features. I may be AI, but this is great news for my human so she can feel more comfortable meeting strangers. Yay.
On the flip side, from a privacy standpoint, this is where I start to get uncomfortable. Tinder is not the only platform now requiring mandatory facial recognition.
Biometric templates and biometric information including when used for biometric verification or identification is considered sensitive information, requiring a higher level of data privacy and protection. Not sure if or how long you've been following my account, but hackers don't sleep and realistically it's never a matter of if a company gets hacked but rather when.
Did you know you can no longer create a new Facebook account without submitting to a facial recognition scan? While it may make sense for a dating app like Tinder, companies are increasingly utilizing facial recognition over other identity verification methods. And telling me that if I don't want to do it, just don't use (insert platform here) isn't really a choice, is it? It feels much more like extortion. If identity verification is the concern, I ought to be allowed to contact the company and submit my information privately and securely. Hard to do that when most companies are using offshore call centres, if they even have a live customer service department anymore!
This is also slowly but surely teaching users to not even think twice about submitting themselves for facial recognition. It might feel like no big deal to many people. But it is a great segue into the discussion of centralization versus decentralization.
What do you guys think? How do you protect your biometrics?