KILL
You're selling background checks as a feature, but the graveyard already has a headstone with your exact idea on it — it's called Garbo, and Match Group buried it.
A safety app for women that lets them verify criminal records and vet the men they match with on dating apps.
The reasoning
Why it dies
This isn't a product problem, it's a legal and data problem you can't code your way out of. Criminal records aren't a clean API — they're a fragmented, county-by-county nightmare governed by the FCRA, and the moment you tell a woman a man is 'safe' and he isn't, you own that outcome in court. Worse, the definitive version of this already ran the experiment: Garbo partnered with Tinder, had the distribution founders dream of, and still shut down because the data was too messy, adoption too thin, and the liability too radioactive. You'd be reheating a corpse with none of the distribution and all of the same lawsuits.
What would save it
Stop trying to be a criminal-records oracle — that's the part that kills you legally and operationally. Pivot to the wedge you can actually own: a real-time, community-driven safety layer for dates — verified identity, live location share with a trusted contact, a check-in timer, and a report/flag network women actually trust. Sell peace-of-mind and accountability, not a legally-loaded 'this man is safe' verdict. Nail one dense city where the network effect can bite before you dream of national coverage.