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Tinder Announces Potential Background Check Feature: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Tinder Announces Potential Background Check Feature: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
By Anonymous | June 18, 2021

In March 2021, Tinder, along with other Match Group entities, publicly announced the decision to allow for its users to run immediate background checks on potential dating partners. The dating service plans to partner with Garbo, a non-profit, female-founded organization that specializes in checks using just their name and phone number and aims to prevent gender-based violence in the midst of an unfair justice system. According to its website, Garbo’s mission is to provide “more accountability, transparency, and access to information to proactively prevent crimes . We provide access to the records and reports that matter so individuals can make more informed decisions about their safety.” The platform provides these records at a substantially lower cost than those provided by for-profit corporations.

Though well-intentioned with ensuring safety and well-being of its users, this partnership of the companies raises questions when it comes to user protection measures and the implications of digital punishment. For one, the access to public records at a user’s disposal might cause concern, especially to those who may have inaccurate records attached to their name, and according to a Slate article highlighting the nature of online criminal records, getting them removed is a taxing process and that virtual footprint could tarnish an individual’s name for life. Public record data is generally error prone, and there would need to be accountability and transparency in how often data is updated and how representative it is of a general population, since it is highly probable that the data collection could disproportionately affect marginalized communities. Additionally, there is a possibility of aliases or misspellings used by offenders to bypass the consequences of being identified in a background check.

Garbo’s technology is still relatively new, and much information isn’t out there regarding the tactics of collecting criminal cases nor maintaining quality control when accessing a criminal database. Could a full name and phone number alone assist in an effective identity matching process? What are the precautions taken to ensure accurate information? How high would error rates be in this situation?  If there are false positives and misidentification, will Garbo hold themselves accountable? Moreover, the non-profit’s current privacy policy does not explicitly disclose information regarding the data that will be provided to a user if they were to request access to criminal records.

The types of crimes that would have the most penalty in the dating sphere are still yet to be confirmed by the Garbo management. So far, Garbo decided to not include drug possession, primarily in order to raise awareness of the racial inequities when it comes to such charges.

In addition, despite claims that Garbo provides checks at low costs, the collaboration with Tinder would imply increases in costs as it is a for-profit entity, so that promise of accessibility may be a distant one.  This initiative is a step in the right direction, but until the public can get more information on how Garbo will maintain accountability and be transparent about the origins of the data, we can only hope of a perfectly safe, regulated, and fair experience for users on these apps.  

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