Match Group's internal rape database 'Sentinel' is never shared with law enforcement

Since 2019, Match Group has operated an internal database called Sentinel that records every user reported for rape and sexual assault across its entire suite of dating apps. By 2022, Sentinel was collecting hundreds of troubling incidents every week. Yet this database has never been shared with law enforcement, and Match Group has never released the transparency report it promised in 2020. This matters because law enforcement investigating serial predators who use dating apps have no way to know that a suspect has been reported by multiple victims across multiple Match Group platforms. Victims report to the app, the app logs it in Sentinel, and nothing happens externally. The structural reason this persists is that disclosing the scope of violence occurring on the platform would expose Match Group to massive liability and regulatory scrutiny, so the data stays locked in an internal system with no external accountability mechanism.