I'm not sure if you're aware, but within the past year or so, there have been a rash of arrests in the Long Beach, San Diego, and Costa Mesa areas of undercover underage decoy stings. There are two individuals that set up Grindr profiles, falsifying their age as adults. When chatted with, they tell the other chatter that they are really underage and in their teens. They attempt to keep the chatter chatting and really attempt to get them state explicit sexual acts that they would like them to be performed on or with them. They take screenshots of all of the chat dialogue. They then attempt to have the chatter meet them outside. When they agree to do so, the decoy has the local police standing by. The chatter is arrested and charged with a felony of attempting to meet a minor for sex.
My question is, why does Grindr not have AGE VERIFICATION? You simply ask the birthdate, but anyone can lie, and they do, like these two individuals.

If they were required to verify age via state ID, AND Grindr automatically populated the birthdate on the profile without the option to not, then the user's birthdate and age would visible to other users. Even if they purported to be underage in the chat as this guy did, we could go back and look at the profile and see their true and real age.

Why do you not have verification as in uploading a drivers license or ID and then wait for it to be verified and authenticated before the user can create a profile. Had that been in place, these two people would have never been able to falsify their identity on Grindr, none of their behavior would have been possible, and there would not have been any sting operation and subsequent arrests.