Match Group is Using Tinder to Make Background Check Technology More Accessible to Users

Less than 1 percent of police reports end in convictions, but Match Group’s newest partnership plans to alleviate the consequences of a flawed justice system.

Match Group’s recent investment to Garbo—a female-founded, first-of-its-kind, nonprofit background check platform—will provide users with historical information about violence and abuse to empower people to make more informed decisions and choices about their safety. Garbo’s platform will be integrated with Tinder later this year in an effort to aid adversely impacted women and marginalized communities.

Match Group will begin testing and building out capabilities for Garbo on Tinder in the coming months. Once Garbo is adopted on Tinder, other U.S. brands will follow. Additional details on implementation will be available over the next several months.

A trailblazer in its industry, Match Group’s portfolio includes Tinder, Match, Meetic, OkCupid, Hinge, Pairs, PlentyOfFish, and OurTime. Overall, the dating platforms aim to create meaningful for every single person worldwide.

For 20 years, Match has focused on ways to continuously enhance the online dating industry; its innovations have been widely recognized, as the company was named to Fortune’s 2020 list of Future 5 and added to the Nasdaq-100 Index this past December.

“For far too long women and marginalized groups in all corners of the world have faced many barriers to resources and safety,” Tracey Breeden, head of Safety and Social Advocacy for Match Group, said in a statement. “We recognize corporations can play a key role in helping remove those barriers with technology and true collaboration rooted in action.”

Founded in 2018 by Kathryn Kosmides, a survivor of gender-based violence, Garbo is a platform that provides users with low-cost background checks by collecting public records and reports of violence or abuse. That includes arrests, convictions, restraining orders, harassment, and other violent crimes.

While this information is exclusive and traditionally offered by for-profit companies, Garbo democratizes access to information, allowing people to make more informed safety decisions.

The company works closely with racial equity and gender justice groups to combat the inequity people of color face in the criminal legal system and across society. Taking a step towards justice, Garbo chooses to exclude arrests related to drug possession and traffic violations, which have a disproportionate impact on marginalized groups.

“Before Garbo, abusers were able to hide behind expensive, hard-to-find public records and reports of their violence; now that’s much harder,” Kathryn Kosmides, founder and CEO of Garbo, said in a statement. “Being able to reach historically underserved populations is fundamental to Garbo’s mission and the partnership with Match will help us connect with these communities.”

Dedicated to investing and innovating the latest technology, Match Group’s investment and newest Garbo partnership aims to empower users with tools to help keep them safer.

Previous partnerships include RAINN, the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, which allowed the company to conduct a comprehensive review of sexual misconduct reporting across Match Group’s dating platforms. Last summer, the company added Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, and Natalie Ludaway, the former chief deputy attorney general for the District of Columbia, to its Match Group Advisory Council (MGAC) to further the prevention of sexual assault, abuse, online harassment, and related issues.

This partnership will serve as a catalyst for Match Group to educate and protect online communities as they provide users with transparent, vital information. To Breeden, “every person deserves safe and respectful experiences,” and Match Group wants to play its part in creating “safer communities on our platforms and beyond.”