not sure how this would work. esp with so many users. spammers could photoshop images (with the handwritten code), and once the acct is verified, the user could change everything (photo, stats, location, etc.).

What might be better is to identifiy users who paid. spammers/scammers aren't going to pay -- identify montly and annual plan) and payment (at least of IOS) is linked to an iTunes acct. Also might be good to know how long the acct has been active. I had one guy who kept creating an acct every few days and kept contacting me with the new acct. Very strange.

And users could see who is a paid member and not, how long they have been a grindr user. And have the option for users to turn this off in areas of the world where it could be dangerous, or used against them. Maybe verified users could give other users a 'checkmark' when they know the other user is real, but that could be used by spammers to create one verified acouunt to verify others. but maybe if those secondary user are flagged as spam/fake, then the original veriified user could get banned from making those verification and his other 'checks' would be removed. Very complicated tho.

Uh. No.

Stupid idea. Not everyone is out of the closet and willing to let everyone know they are gay. It should be an option (not part of xtra either), and one should not have to display a face pic publicly to use it. But also those considering should beware that this is a horribly insecure company with ties to China. I wouldn't trust them with any personal info that would be used to verify, because they have been hacked multiple times.

Agreed

There should be an option (like the new feature
"Haven't chatted yet") where if people haven't uploaded a pic on their profile, they can't contact you.

You can still take screenshots though.

But I like taking screenshots of guys I like too, so don't make it impossible to take screenshots.

Maybe we can put a bigger grindr watermark instead, so using the pic as your own is impossible because people could tell you took it off another person's profile.

Difficult cause Grindr would lose a lot of users. A lot of gay men on this app are closeted - back then I was and I would definitely have deleted grindr if I had to have my face showing on my profile.

Good idea, but it doesn't have to be mandatory.

Maybe a verification feature for those willing to have their faces on display is better. Have the verified icon; enjoy its privileges.

Or a video that the app records itself, so you can't upload a video of another person's head shot that's been saved to your gallery.

The idea is good but profiles can work around this and verify their face, then send pictures of other guys through chatting. So they have the verified icon, but still be a poser account.

BUT I think we CAN still implement this effectively by verifying the profile pictures instead [obviously we can't verify torsos so this feature would only be effective with those guys willing to have their face pic on their display] - - and every time they change their display picture, they're gonna have to get verified again. This other gay app Blue'd already has this feature and I think we can copy the way they do this; would definitely help us filter the fake profiles from the legitimate ones.

LOL.. These people need to be on FACEbook if they can't chat with someone long enough based on other common interest and trade face pics when everyone involved is comfortable. This is something you can post in your profile, and many do just that. No face pic=no reply, etc.. At that point if someone contacts you and there is no face pic then don't reply, what's the big deal. It sounds like all the commotion is that they like what they see prior to the face pic but then are not as turned on when they get the face pic. Well make a decision and move on. It's either a match or it's not.

Here in New Orleans we have several abusive users who simply skirt you with another profile - it’s unpleasant and uncalled for - block their device not their profile! Your competition manages to have zero issues with this process

Verify with a debit/credit card with the person’s name. No need to store the info once verified and keeps the spam and underage ones off.

Is important that Grindr force the users who wants to add an instagram o Facebook account to his grindr profile to verify his identity and whit this avoid the suplantation or the use of other people photos. Cause this happened to me a lot!!! The people use my pics all the time and the add my instagram account to them profiles.

There was a time where you can drag and drop images into google search to see if photos were taken from blogs, and would be able to find a whole mess of them, but grindr doesn't allow an easy way to drag and drop image into google image search engine to find out.. That's another way to minimize fake profiles..

The only way to do this is to enable users to verify a profile after a meet up, user can anonymously verify the person by posting something to the profile.. But then again what judgemental gay person on this site would even be nice enough to do such a thing?

Simple Verification surely is the least Grindr should have a duty of care to do - I think legally they are required to verify identity.

How can they be certain that there aren’t children using this app without verification?? And there’s a **** load of laws against children and ****** images!!

Grindr, you might wanna fix this ASAP or a criminal law suit will be heading your way :)

Totally agree!! Isn’t the point of this app genuine chats, friends, networking, hook ups? Seems like all of these uses require verification.

Seems like a no brained, right?

Yes yes yes!! We so need verification.

Does anyone know if Grindr are doing anything about this?

Totally agree! We need verification ASAP!