Tinder bans teenage users, reversing policy of letting people as young as 13 use dating app

The site has made the move as it looks to act with more 'responsibility'

Joel Balcita shows his homemade Tinder App costume at the West Hollywood Halloween Costume Carnaval, which attracts nearly 500,000 people annually (Reuters)

Tinder is banning teenagers from using its app.

Until now, people as young as 13 had been able to use the app. They were limited to chatting with other young people, with people between 13 and 17 essentially matching within their own pool.

But the app will now ban those people from using the app, arguing that it is looking to exercise more “responsibility”.

“On a platform that has facilitated over 11 billion connections, we have the responsibility of constantly assessing our different user experiences,” Tinder’s official statement said. “Consistent with this responsibility, we have decided to discontinue service for under 18 users. We believe this is the best policy moving forward. This change will take effect next week.”

Only 3 per cent of the app’s users will be impacted by the change, the site said.

The company is in the process of making a range of changes in line with its new commitment to responsibility, including a promise to make sure that the app is more hospitable to its transgender users.

In the UK and elsewhere, 13 is considered the “age of consent” for the internet, meaning that people are thought to be old enough to give away their data at their age. That means that people can start legitimately using Facebook and other social networks from that age.

Tinder verifies all of its users through Facebook, and so will presumably check that people are old enough through the information that they add on that site.

The change will come into effect from next week, it said. 13-year-olds have been able to use the app since it launched, in 2012.