What is Photo Check?
Authenticity is vital at Tinder. When our automated safety systems or human moderators detect unusual activity, they may prompt the profile in question to complete Photo Check in order to resume normal use of the app.
How does Photo Check work?
Completing Photo Check is as simple as taking a video selfie. Photo Check detects the face in your video and helps determine whether the video was taken by a real, live person, and that it wasn’t digitally altered or manipulated. It also uses biometric data to generate a unique face template from your video selfie. These templates are used to help check whether the person in your video selfie appears to be the same person as in your profile photos. We may also conduct a manual review of your photos.
Once you successfully complete Photo Check, your account is unlocked and you will be able to continue using the app as normal.
Your biometric data is not retained and is deleted within 24 hours.
How is my Biometric Information used?
In order to complete Photo Check, your biometric data is used as described above and then deleted within 24 hours. However, you also have the additional option of completing Photo Verification. If you choose to complete this process and you successfully get a Photo Verified badge, your biometric information is retained for the life of your account for the purpose of providing you with the Photo Verification feature. Your video selfie itself will not be stored, and is deleted immediately after you complete that step. The two screenshots we take from your video selfie are used only for the purposes of auditing and managing this feature.
If you opt for Photo Verification, your biometric information will also be used to help ensure users only have one Photo Verified account. To do this, we compare the facial geometry data from your video selfie against the facial geometry data associated with other Photo Verified Tinder accounts. This is to help ensure that no one else tries to Photo Verify an account with your facial geometry, and that users do not complete Photo Verification for multiple accounts. As a reminder, Tinder users must comply with Tinder’s requirement to only operate one account at a time, as set out in our Terms of Use and Community Guidelines.
To perform the Photo Verification process and to help ensure that users verify only one account, we store and use your biometric information and screenshots on our Amazon Web Services (AWS) instances. This information and the screenshots are deleted from our AWS instances in the timeframes laid out in the next two sections. If you want to learn more about AWS' privacy practices, you can click here.
What information will you keep after Photo Check is complete?
If you do not opt for Photo Verification, we store the results of the process (successful or not), and two screenshots from your video selfie for the purpose of completing the manual review portion of Photo Check, and to audit the feature. Your biometric information is deleted within 24 hours and is not retained. We also do not retain your video selfie.
What information will you keep if I opt into Photo Verification?
If you choose to voluntarily participate in Photo Verification, your facial geometry information is retained after the initial Photo Verification so that we can continue to provide the Photo Verification service to you as you change and update your profile photos over time, and to help ensure that users only Photo Verify one account. To do so, your facial geometry data is retained for the lifetime of your account, and is deleted from our systems within 30 days after the closure of your account, in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
We will also keep two screenshots from the video selfie process. We retain this information for the life of your account to audit and manage our Photo Verification feature. We’ll also keep the results of the Photo Verification process (i.e., successful or not) until you close your Tinder account, or alternatively, until your Tinder account is closed after two years of inactivity. As stated above, we do not keep your video selfie, which is deleted after you complete the Photo Verification process.
What happens if I choose not to complete Photo Check?
If you choose not to complete Photo Check within two years, you’ll no longer be able to use your account. Your account information is retained as set out in Tinder’s Privacy Policy.
You’ll still be able to access your account information using Tinder’s Download My Data tool for a period of two years, after which your profile information will be purged as described in the “How long we retain your information” section of Tinder’s Privacy Policy.
How do I delete my information?
If you choose to participate in Photo Check, you may exercise your right to delete your information as set out below.
Your information includes your facial geometry data (which is the facial ‘template’ used to complete the Photo Verification check) and your two video selfie screenshots (retained as part of both the Photo Check and Photo Verification processes). Please see below for information on how to delete these two types of data:
Facial Geometry Data
You can delete your facial geometry data by deleting your Tinder account through the app’s settings page.
Why do I need to delete my account in order to delete my facial geometry data?
Tinder’s Photo Verified Badge is a great way to help show potential matches that you really look like your pictures. To help ensure that users are not misled or confused about whether their matches are still Photo Verified, we do not allow users to delete their facial geometry data (thereby disabling Photo Verification) without also resetting their matches and starting again with a regular, non-Photo Verified account. This requirement is intended to prevent abuse of the Photo Verified Badge and to ensure other users can be confident about whether their matches continue to have Photo Verified accounts.
Video Selfie Screenshots
You can request deletion of the two screenshots from your video selfie by writing to our Community team here. In any event, this information is deleted upon account closure, in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
Under what legal authority do you process my information?
We only process Photo Check and Photo Verification information with your consent.
How do I find more information about Tinder’s data practices, including my privacy rights?
Visit our Privacy Policy to learn more about our privacy practices, including the Your Rights section.
Trouble with Photo Check or Photo Verification?
If you’re experiencing trouble with capturing your video selfie, you can exit the Photo Check or Photo Verification flow and start again. See here for more additional instructions for using this feature. If you experience any issues or have feedback, please feel free to contact us.
What if I have another question?
Contact us anytime!