Bumble's previous offices in Austin, texas, known as 'The Hive' Jeff Wilson

Dating app Bumble has changed its login system to help its 30 million-plus users avoid Facebook. The new feature, which launches on April 17, lets users register and login without sharing information with the embattled social network.

Like many other apps, including rival Tinder, Bumble, which launched in 2014, used Facebook to speed up and simplify the process of registration and login. First time users shared their Facebook profile with Bumble, which imported their name, age, school or occupation and photos to build a profile.


This simple act gave Bumble access to Facebook account information, including, according to its privacy policy, "your friends list, relationship status, current location and friends you have in common with other Bumblers". Bumble also used the information on Facebook – including friends, photos and “likes” – to match its users with potential partners.

At the same time, Facebook gained insights into the behaviour of Bumble's users and the mobile app economy. For Bumble, this seemed like a small price to pay – until recent revelations about Facebook raised questions about the safety of private information on the platform. Despite the change, people can still login to Bumble using their Facebook account.

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"Many of our users and prospective users asked for an alternative registration method," says Louise Troen, Bumble's VP of International Marketing and Communications. "As always, empowering our users to make connections is our number one priority and we wanted to continue to ensure our users felt safe while doing this."

Bumble's new registration lets users login with their phone number instead of a social profile. Other dating apps allow phone number registration but, according to Bumble, "still share data with Facebook." Bumble's new registration process bypasses the social network altogether.

Of course, the question is: will users think the extra effort of is uploading their own information worth it to avoid Facebook? Only time will tell. "We look forward to seeing the impact manual login will have," says Troen.