Safety

Image: Heartbeat Blog

Dating apps are getting serious about user safety. Following last month’s announcement that new safety features are coming to Tinder, another major dating platform owned by Match Group is adding safety features of its own. Match.com’s latest release is Date Check-In, a communication tool that allows users to keep selected friends and family members informed while they’re on a date.

Going on a date with someone you met online can be intimidating — not just because any first date comes with its fair share of nerves, but also because of the potential to wind up entangled with a con artist, creep or other unsavory character. With Date Check-In, Match users can easily send out an SOS if they feel unsafe. The feature lets users designate three emergency contacts who will receive an automated notification in case of emergency.

We might be social distancing, but rest assured - singles are looking to dating apps to keep their love lives going during the coronavirus pandemic. 

A recent survey conducted by Dating.com found that there was a spike in dating app activity among users in countries around the world as the coronavirus becomes widespread. As many as 82 percent of singles are turning online as they self-quarantine in their homes.

From those surveyed, more than 50 percent of daters said that they would be interested in conducting online dates to get to know people they’ve met online to avoid spreading or catching the virus. Thirty percent of those surveyed said that they are going to just stick with messaging and chatting with matches using their dating apps until they are able to meet up in person. Notably, only 5 percent of singles reported that they are going to stop dating altogether until the virus passes.

Grindr's Descreet App Icons

Image: grindr

Grindr is upping its privacy practices by giving users the option of hiding the app on their phones.

The Discreet App Icon allows users the option of replacing the Grindr app icon on their phone with another symbol, effectively to hide the fact that they are using Grindr if someone else gets hold of their phone. The feature is accessible in the security section of the app’s settings. Grindr first made the Discreet App Icon available in countries where gay, bi and trans people are in the most danger, and now is launching the feature for all users no matter where they reside.

According to a company press release, the feature was developed with London-based human rights organization Article 19, The Guardian Project, and Grindr for Equality to help keep users safe, not only within countries where gay rights are not sanctioned, but anywhere that people are threatened due to their LGBTQ or gender status. This is especially timely as gay, trans and non-binary rights are being threatened around the world.

MeetMe 3D Face Verification

Can you ever know, with complete certainty, that a match you’ve only communicated with online is who they say they are? Although the number of real singles using dating apps continues to grow, so does the number of bots, scammers, catfishers and other imposters of the digital world. The Meet Group hopes to thwart these scourges in 2020 by introducing ways to enhance authenticity across its portfolio of dating apps, starting with 3D face verification.

The idea of using images to verify a user’s identity is nothing new. Current incarnations of this concept often rely on users submitting selfies in certain poses or holding up a piece of paper that displays a specific code. Once these photos are submitted, a human employee compares the selfie to the uploaded profile photo to confirm the owner’s identity. This method is time-consuming and labor-intensive (and, as The Meet Group CEO Geoff Cook noted in a blog post, “not exactly foolproof”). 

A committee from the U.S. House of Representatives is investigating popular dating apps such as Tinder, Bumble and OkCupid following a report that found underage users and sex offenders were using the apps.

According to a report from AP, the House Oversight and Reform subcommittee on economic and consumer policy sent separate letters on Thursday January 30th to Bumble, Grindr, The Meet Group, and Match Group (which owns Tinder and OkCupid among others). The letters asked for information on “users’ ages, procedures for verifying ages, and any complaints about assaults, rape or the use of the services by minors,” according to AP.

The subcommittee is also seeking additional information on privacy policies for each of the apps, and what users see when they are asked to review or accept such policies. Recently, dating apps have also come under fire for third-party sharing of personal data, where user information wouldn’t be protected by the dating app’s own privacy policy.

UK-based dating app Butterfly, catering specifically to transgendered daters, has just launched in India, according to Quartz.

India is becoming a hot market for the dating app industry and is a big focus for Match Group and Bumble, who have launched high-profile campaigns to promote their dating apps in the country, including investing in celebrity partnerships and hiring regional managers. 

However, transgendered daters are finding it hard to find love on dating apps, especially in India, even as they take off.