Online daters using one of Match Group's (MTCH) apps can now use Garbo's online background check service to screen potential dates.

"With just the limited information that you have about someone... like their first name, maybe their phone number, age, or their Zodiac sign, you put this limited information into the system," Garbo Founder and CEO Kathryn Kosmides told Yahoo Finance. "In less than two minutes we'll show someone if they have any violence or harmful arrest convictions or sex offender records."

Garbo searches typically cost $3.25 each, according to the nonprofit's website, but the web-based app is providing complimentary background checks to Match Group's free and premium subscribers.

First tested on Tinder, the offer has now expanded to Match Group's umbrella of apps including Hinge, OkCupid, and the recently-launched dating service for single parents Stir.

Privacy in online dating

In developing the app, Kosmides and her team sought to create "new kind of online background check" that limits the exposure of search subjects while still promoting safety in online dating.

"We're trying to balance privacy and protection — the great debate of the digital age," Kosmides said.

She outlined how the personal data not shown in search results is just as important as what is shown, as typical background check platforms tend to reveal too much private information about people.

"I think that background checks have existed in some sort, especially since the rise of the internet," Kosmides said. "I just don't think that they were a good solution for dating apps. ... They often will provide really invasive access to personal identifying information like someone's home address, email address, or phone numbers, and that can be really dangerous, especially if that person is in a vulnerable situation. So we don't provide access to any of that."

Instead, Garbo focuses on flagging subjects for dating violence convictions, registries on sexual offense databases, and fraud offenses.