In a bid to tackle catfishing and fake profiles, Tinder is rolling out mandatory facial recognition for new users in California. The move, first reported by Axios, marks a significant expansion of the app’s existing “Face Check” technology already in use in countries like Colombia and Canada.
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The new feature requires anyone signing up in California to take a short video selfie, which Tinder’s system uses to verify that they’re a real person and that their face matches their uploaded profile photos. The scan also helps detect if the same face is being used across multiple accounts, a common tactic among scammers and bots.
Once verified, users get a “Photo Verified” badge on their profiles, a digital stamp of authenticity that could make a big difference in how people match and interact. According to Tinder, the selfie video is deleted after verification, but an encrypted face map is retained to help spot duplicates down the line.
It’s worth noting that Face Check is different from Tinder’s “ID Check,” which uses government-issued IDs to verify a user’s age and identity. By layering facial recognition on top of ID checks, Tinder is doubling down on security and transparency, but the move is also likely to reignite debates about privacy and biometric data.
For now, Tinder is framing the shift as a way to help people feel safer and more confident in their matches. Whether it becomes a broader industry standard remains to be seen, but in a world where AI bots and fake profiles are multiplying, a verified face might just be the new dealbreaker.