Tinder to Require Face Scans for New U.S. Users

Match Group is making its Face Check facial verification mandatory for all new U.S. Tinder users, beginning with California and rolling out to other states in the coming months; the feature is already live in several countries. New members must record a short in-app liveness video selfie that is compared to their profile photos; successful matches earn a Photo Verified badge. Match says raw videos are deleted after review while it retains an encrypted, non-reversible face map/3D vector or mathematical hash to detect duplicate accounts, bots, stolen-photo scams and other bad actors. Match reports testing results showing about a 60% drop in exposure to potential bad actors and roughly a 40% reduction in related reports. The system is reported to be powered by FaceTec and builds a 3D face model from multiple angles rather than using a device’s Face ID module; Match plans to extend similar verification across its other dating apps next year amid privacy and regulatory concerns.