Tinder, a social app helping singles find love around the world, is doing a better job of keeping fake users out of the matchmaking process. The mobile identity company TeleSign says it has reduced Tinder’s spam traffic by 90 percent. TeleSign’s system weeds out nefarious entities using real-time risk analysis of phone numbers.

The process starts by verifying the user’s identity through their mobile number, “the single greatest unique identifier for a person online” according toTeleSign co-founder and VP Ryan Disraeli.

“Starting with our PhoneID Score product, we analyze the risk level associated with a user’s device – identified through the phone number – and then determine if they should be verified through our SMS Verification product,” Disraeli says. “By utilizing both products, we are able to identity risky phone numbers associated with new accounts, challenge them through SMS, and then ultimately block fraudsters before they are ever able to create an account.”

Tinder says these capabilities are delivered via a TeleSign REST API and easily integrated into the mobile app. Within a month of implementing the system, the matchmaking company says there was a plummet in the amount of phone numbers the algorithm recommended blocking.

“It is a huge feat to categorize the billions of phone numbers out there,” Tinder CTO Ryan Ogle says. “Once we had TeleSign in place, we were able to block fraudulent accounts in a much more sophisticated way. It’s been 100 percent accurate.”

Tinder launched in 2012, logging over a million users within a few months. Now the company claims an estimated 50 million active users each month.

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