Tinder rolls out facial verification in Singapore as part of global effort to root out scams

SINGAPORE - New Tinder users in Singapore are now required to take a video selfie to verify that they are a real person before they can join the dating platform, which is moving to weed out bots, fake profiles and scammers. 

Singapore is the latest market in the global roll-out of the safety feature by Tinder’s parent company Match Group since June 2025. Countries that have implemented the feature earlier include the US and Britain.

For now, existing users do not need to complete the video selfie verification unless there are signs of suspicious activity, such as liking many profiles in a short period or sending similar messages to multiple accounts, said Mr Yoel Roth, the company’s senior vice-president of trust and safety, on April 8.

Called Face Check, the safety feature is also expected to be eventually extended in Singapore to Match Group’s other social media platforms, including Hinge and OkCupid, though no timeline was given.

Mr Roth said the feature serves multiple trust and safety functions:

In markets where the feature has been implemented, there has been a 60 per cent decrease in exposure to potential bad actors like scammers, bots and banned users who had been reported for abusive behaviour, he told the media on April 8 in Match Group’s Asia-Pacific headquarters at One Raffles Place.

In the US, banned users are now caught within one day about 80 per cent of the time – an improvement from around 50 per cent before the feature was rolled out.

“We have seen improvements across the board in everything from low sophistication scams, where people register fake accounts to try and advertise adult websites, all the way to sophisticated scams that are trying to convince people to engage in fraudulent investment schemes. Face Check has been impactful across all of these because it’s preventing bad actors from getting onto the platform in the first place,” said Mr Roth.

Face Check requires users to record a three-second video selfie in real time, capturing multiple angles of their face. The system then generates unique biometric data from the selfie, which is then used to confirm that the face in the video matches the user’s profile photos.

Mr Roth said the company began seeing two worrying trends around 2025: sophisticated criminal syndicates moving onto dating apps and the rise of generative AI tools that can produce lifelike profile photos and human-like chat responses. Together, these have increased scam risks.

Dating apps have come under public pressure over whether their safeguards are keeping pace with increasingly sophisticated scams, fake identities and repeat offenders who can slip back onto platforms.

In the United States, Match Group was sued in December 2025 by six women who allege it failed to remove a Denver cardiologist later convicted of multiple rapes from Tinder and Hinge despite repeated reports, allowing him to continue targeting victims.

Other widely used dating apps in Singapore have also taken action to weed out bad actors: Coffee Meets Bagel began mandatory Singpass verification for its local users on June 9, 2025. Bumble rolled out optional government-issued ID checks shortly after that. 

Mr Roth said users are more receptive to video selfie verification than checks involving official documents like national identity cards and driving licences, as many are reluctant to link their dating profiles to formal identification. Besides, he added, such systems can also be circumvented with fake documents.

Acknowledging user concerns over safety, he said the company hopes such measures will help rebuild trust and attract paying customers. 

“We are so invested in safety and in building features like these because we view it as the core of how we turn around sentiment about dating apps and really build a foundation of trust,” said Mr Roth.