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Spotting Scammers with "Verified" Dating App Profiles

Understanding what photo verification means on a dating app (and what it doesn't)

Irina Manta | 4.23.2026 5:01 PM

It sounded at least somewhat promising when Tinder announced last year that it would start requiring photo verification for new users across the United States. Deploying a technology called "Face Check", Tinder would have every such user take a video selfie whose coordinates would be compared against pictures uploaded with the profile. While this is a partial improvement over the previous state of things where facial verification was generally optional, significant flaws are emerging.

Earlier this month, journalist Christophe Haubursin uploaded a video to YouTube that showed a strange phenomenon whereby a lot of Tinder profiles exhibited a similar pattern without obvious initial explanation. The first eight profile pictures would show one individual, but then the ninth picture would be an........

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