Tinder, the widely popular dating app, will soon attempt to make your dates safe by adding a panic button on the app, as well as giving you safety check-ins and an added layer of live location tracking. The new features come via Tinder’s acquisition of Noonlight, an app that offers live tracking of a user’s location and notifies the police in case an alarm is raised. Initially, the feature will only be available in USA, but if it proves popular, it is likely that Tinder will roll out the feature to more markets.
Talking about the matter to The Wall Street Journal, Tinder’s holding firm Match Group’s CEO Mandy Ginsberg reportedly stated that safety in the dating business should be approached “as if you were a mom”. In essence, Ginsberg is of the opinion that since most of Tinder’s meet-ups and matches involve two users meeting together for the first time ever, the privacy trade-off of sharing the real time location with a third party app should be deemed passable – in the name of physical safety.
Going forward, as part of the new features brought forth by Noonlight to Tinder’s platform, users will be able to add a badge stating that they have a date, and even add the information to their app timeline, divulging who they are with, and at what time. Their location will then be tracked live, and if anything goes wrong, users can tap on a panic button in the app, prompting Noonlight’s team to send a police team to help ease the safety concerns.
To have a team sent, users will be asked to enter a code once the alarm is triggered. If they fail to enter the code, Noonlight will attempt to text the person. Failure to respond to this will further beckon a phone call from the team, and further failure to answer this will make the team send an emergency team. Tinder is keeping the option of live location tracking up to a user’s choice, but believes that the privacy trade-off is worthwhile in order to make the dating app ecosystem safer.
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