Dating app Tinder is planning to add new AI-based safety tech and a panic button for those who find themselves in danger on dates.
Tinder has become one of the most popular ways for people to find a date in recent years, but it's been plagued with issues such as spambots and the number of reports of sexual offences from people who first met on dating apps is on the rise. Other major challenges include catfishing, where a person pretends to be someone else.
To combat these problems, Tinder's parent company Match Group (which also owns dating services PlentyOfFish, Hinge, and OkCupid) has announced plans to roll out a series of new safety features to the app starting this month. A photo verification system will help to combat catfishing, and AI will be used to help flag fake profiles.
The update's biggest feature is a new panic button users can hit to alert emergency services if something serious goes wrong when on a Tinder date. Users will fill in information about when and where the date is taking place and the person they're going on the date with, and can hit the button to alert emergency services and transmit accurate location data to them.
All of the new features will be trialled later this month in the US, and will also come to Match Group's other apps throughout 2020, but there's no timeline yet for a UK rollout of the features. The firm is partnering with new online safety company Noonlight that delivers real-time links to emergency services.
Match Group chief executive Mandy Ginsberg commented on the need for these new safety feature: "We've found cutting-edge technology in Noonlight that can deliver real-time emergency services – which doesn't exist on any other dating product – so that we can empower singles with tools to keep them safer and give them more confidence. Integrating this kind of technology, in addition to the other safety standards that Match Group is implementing across our brands, is a necessary step in dating innovation."
Source: BBC News, Header image (c) Tinder
