It’s about to get a whole lot harder for catfishers on Tinder. Starting today, new users in California will have to scan their faces while setting up their accounts to ensure that they’re both real and that they match their profile photos.
Called Face Check, the new mandatory feature is the first step in a new initiative from Tinder’s parent company Match Group, which says the goal is to help reduce “spam, scam attempts, or [bots] operating automated fake profiles.” When signing up, users will need to complete a “liveness check,” during which they’ll take a video selfie from various angles. After that, the app will compare the selfie to profile pictures also uploaded during setup, and if it determines that they match, the user will get a “Photo Verified badge” and they’ll be able to finish making their account. Tinder also says the system can determine if a picture has been used across multiple accounts to help prevent impersonation.
While Face Check is new to the United States, it’s already been launched abroad in Colombia, Canada, Australia, India, and “several countries across Southeast Asia.” According to Tinder, “when coupled with other recent safety initiatives,” Face Check has led to an over 60% decrease in users exposed to “bad actors,” and an over 40% decrease in reports of bad actors.
Face Check’s debut also coincides with the rise of AI image generators, and while the company’s announcement post doesn’t explicitly call out AI, it’s not hard to see how it could prove handy against bots using generated photos to pretend to be someone who doesn’t even exist. Traditional catfishing methods, such as using stock photos, can be detected with diligent reverse image searching, but AI’s ability to quickly create novel, believable, and specifically tailored results has made it harder than ever to know whether you’re speaking to a genuine human online.
At the same time, as other apps begin to collect personal information like government IDs, there is a privacy concern. Tinder says that Face Check only uses your video selfie to complete the verification process, and deletes it shortly after review, although it does generate a “non-reversible, encrypted face map” that is stored to “help verify new photos, detect fraud, and prevent duplicate accounts.”
As someone who met my husband on Twitter (RIP), I’ll leave it up to you whether that’s worth it. Have you tried just getting real good at posting instead?
For now, though, you might have to wait a bit until Face Check actually makes its way to you. First, Tinder is not forcing existing accounts to use Face Check, which is why I assume it’s using a badge to indicate the accounts that have gone through Face Check, even though it’s mandatory during setup. Second, Face Check is rolling out slowly. Tinder says that it will come to additional states “in the coming months,” although the company did not provide an exact timeline.
As for other apps, Match Group (which also owns OKCupid, Hinge, and Plenty of Fish, among others) says it will extend Face Check to additional platforms in 2026.
