Tokyo Government Launches Dating App
Contributed by: kellyseal on Friday, January 26 2024 @ 01:38 pm
Last modified on Friday, January 26 2024 @ 01:46 pm
Birth rates have gone down in Japan, so the local Tokyo government wants to tackle the problem with a new government-issued dating app in hopes of sparking some romance.
The big selling point for this dating app is that you won’t have to endure the high numbers of bots that come with regular dating apps, and that the platform offers a more secure online dating experience for users. The new app is backed by a government-approved vetting process, which requires users to prove their marital status and income and to take part in an online interview to confirm their identity, according to Sora News 24[*1] .
The app will be run by a private company, but the government will require official documentation from users to prove their marital status and identity, according to Nikkei Asia.
The app is for those ages 18 and older who are living, working or studying in Tokyo. It will use AI to match people based on personal information gathered from the interview process.
Tokyo had incentive to develop its own app: the city had a larger share of never-married people at age 50 than anywhere else in Japan, according to Nikkei[*2] . In 2020, the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research found that 32.15 percent of men and 23.79 percent of women in the city had never married. City officials also discovered that most people preferred to meet others over dating apps.
The government held a limited trial of the app late last year via a browser version of the platform, and it was only accessible to government employees and people who participated in government matchmaking events, according to Sora News 24. Feedback during the trial will be used to make changes and improvements to the app before it launches officially.
So far, there’s been some negative response to the news, according to Sora. One user posted this when reading the news:
“Is Tokyo tax money going towards this? If this is meant to tackle late marriage and declining birthrates then even a layman like myself thinks other things need to be done… But maybe I’m wrong and a dating app is the last resort?”
Tokyo isn’t the first government to develop its own dating app. Local regions in China began doing this a few years ago to increase marriage and birth rates in the wake of the one-child legislation. There were too many single men looking for wives, and many single women enjoyed their own well-paying jobs and didn’t see the need to get married and have children.
Tokyo’s move means that more people who haven’t used a dating app could be willing to try, thanks to the extra security it would provide. The government is still waiting on approval from app stores, but plans to launch officially later this year.