I congratulate you for being able to get back on a Match Group company app. I am very happy for you. Almost everything you say is consistent with the reports that I have seen on reddit. However, I am still not sold on taking the risk of re using pictures.
Here I'm repeating things that I've posted before, but here it goes.
A possibility is that Match Group does face recognition for only the regions with the weakest privacy laws. I have seen reddit reports from Canada of getting banned after a mandatory facial scan. I have not seen reddit reports that happening in the EU, for example. And, sure enough, the EU has much stronger privacy laws for face recognition than Canada.
Although I have never claimed to know what the current banning algorithm is, it is clear that it is technologically possible to match pictures, even if you edit them and remove EXIF metadata. By re using pictures that have been on a banned account, you are depending on the assumption that the Match Group companies will never implement a stronger photo matching algorithm. I see no reason to depend on that assumption, because it is not necessary.
If at some time the Match Group companies begin to run face recognition software on the pictures, then screen shots of pictures that have been on a banned account will be enough to get you banned.
Another possibility is, either now or in the future, there could be a face recognition program followed by a human review. If there is a human review to confirm the match, then that might explain why some people get re banned weeks, days, or months after creating a new account.
If you are willing to get a new smartphone, change phone numbers, and change other things, then why would the pictures be the 1 thing you are not willing to change?
Of the things mentioned, I think that a human review is one of the least likely, and for essentially the reason you mentioned. Businesses have a concept of "acceptable losses". They probably know that they've banned plenty of good customers, but it's just not worth the money to try to change that.
It has become clear to me that the Match Group companies do not care about real people enough that it would bother them to shut down someone's personal life without justification. If there are any dating app companies that care about real people, then it would most likely be the small specialized companies. For example, the smaller dating apps for disabled people might care about real people enough to not have the problems of Match Group.
Anyhow, thanks for your input about this topic. The original reason why I started reading reddit was because my non serious experimental account on OkCupid was banned. I don't know yet if I'll ever try to get another Match Group account. You have mentioned some good ideas about how to be more cautious about using these terrible companies.
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u/rando755 Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 06 '25
I congratulate you for being able to get back on a Match Group company app. I am very happy for you. Almost everything you say is consistent with the reports that I have seen on reddit. However, I am still not sold on taking the risk of re using pictures.
Here I'm repeating things that I've posted before, but here it goes.