Banned dating app users can rejoin with the same name, photo, and birthday

When a user is banned from a Match Group dating app (Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish) for sexual assault reports, they can immediately create a new account using the exact same name, birthday, and profile photos. The Dating Apps Reporting Project confirmed this in December 2025 testing across Hinge, Plenty of Fish, and OkCupid. This matters because it makes the entire report-and-ban system theater: victims who summon the courage to report an assailant are given the false impression that the person has been removed, while the abuser is back on the platform within minutes, finding new targets. The structural reason this persists is that dating apps have no cross-platform identity verification or biometric deduplication. Match Group owns 45+ apps but does not share ban lists with enforceable identity checks across them, because robust identity verification adds friction that reduces signups, and signups are the core growth metric that drives their stock price.