Does Banning People With Felonies From Dating Apps Make Anyone Safer?
Posted on May 20, 2021
THE MARSHALL PROJECT – May 20 – Match Group plans to launch a feature allowing daters to run background checks on potential matches. The company says its efforts are aimed at keeping users safe. But civil rights advocates say the record checks extend an unfair practice of imposing "collateral consequences" long after people have finished their sentences. "Meeting strangers can be risky, and I worry that this approach will mislead people into thinking they're safe," said Sarah Lageson, a Rutgers University sociologist who studies the growing use of online criminal records. People with felonies – anything from a $10 drug conviction to capital murder – are banned for life from some dating apps including Match Group's apps, Coffee Meets Bagel, Zoosk. A representative for The Meet Group said that only two of the company's apps – Skout and GROWLr – have a ban, based on policies it inherited when it acquired those apps. The representative said The Meet Group would reconsider that part of the policy.
