The German referee that will hear a Tinder, Hinge or OkCupid ban
and the one thing it cannot do.

When a dating app denies your appeal, the company has marked its own homework. In the European Union that is no longer the last word. Article 21 of the Digital Services Act created certified out-of-court dispute settlement bodies, certified by a national regulator rather than by the platform, that read a moderation decision and say whether it was right.

The certified bodies are listed in the Commission’s official register, and most of them will not help a banned dating-app user. Three will, on paper: Platform Control in Germany, ADR Center in Italy and ADR Point in Greece. Only the German one is named for dating in the register itself. This page is about that body and where the route stops. The general explainer is here.

What a certified Article 21 body actually is

A referee, not a court and not a regulator. Article 21 lets a user take a platform’s decision to an independent body certified by their national Digital Services Coordinator. The right belongs to the recipient of the service, which for a ban means the account holder, and bans are not a marginal fit: Article 20(1)(b) and (c) cover decisions to suspend or terminate the service and the account.

What makes it different from every other rung is who reads your file. A support agent reviewing your appeal is paid by the company that banned you. A certified body is not, and it charges the platform for turning up.

Which dating apps are actually named

The Commission’s register states Platform Control’s areas of expertise as covering “YouTube, Google Maps, Reddit, Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid”, in German and English, and adds that all very large online platforms will be covered from May 2026. That last line adds no dating app, because no dating app is a designated very large online platform.

Six platforms, three of them dating apps. Tinder, Hinge and OkCupid are the only dating apps named anywhere in that register, under any body. Not Bumble, not Badoo, not Plenty of Fish, and Grindr has no named referee there at all. Bumble and Badoo do have a route, but it is published somewhere else, on two other bodies’ intake forms rather than on the register, and we come to it below.

Now the catch, and it is the most important paragraph here. Platform Control’s own rules of procedure name no platform at all. Its Verfahrensordnung is built around subject-matter categories and the scope of Article 21 DSA, not around brands. So the Tinder, Hinge and OkCupid list lives in the Commission register and the Bundesnetzagentur’s certification, and nowhere in the document that binds the body. Treat it as published scope filed with a regulator, which is worth a great deal, and not as a rule that guarantees your case is taken.

Two other bodies are worth knowing about, and they publish their coverage in a different place: their register entries list subject matter only, but their own live intake forms name dating apps outright.

Italy’s ADR Center and Greece’s ADR Point tell you where they stand on their complaint forms rather than in the register. ADR Center, certified by AGCOM on 18 December 2024 with its rules effective 1 September 2025, names Hinge, Tinder, Bumble, Badoo and OkCupid on its intake form and runs dedicated landing pages for banned Hinge and Tinder accounts. ADR Point, certified by EETT on 23 June 2025, names Bumble, Hinge and Tinder. Both are free to you. Both require you to have complained inside the app first, which Platform Control does not, and ADR Point also wants a copy of an identity document. ADR Center gives you twelve months; ADR Point’s rules state no deadline at all, which is a gap rather than a licence to take your time.

The same caveat applies to both, in mirror image. Their rules of procedure name no platform either, so the dating apps live on the intake form and nowhere in the binding document. Published scope, again, rather than a guarantee.

The body most people find first, Appeals Centre Europe, refuses dating apps outright: its rules cover Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Threads, YouTube or Google Maps, and nothing else. Beyond those three, no certified body names a dating app anywhere we could find, on the register or on its own intake form.

Free to you, and who actually pays

Article 4(2) of Platform Control’s rules makes the process free to the user. The one exception is a filing it treats as “eindeutig böswillig”, clearly malicious, where fees can be shifted onto you: a high bar, but a real one, and a reason not to fire off a dozen of these. Otherwise the platform carries the cost. Every other rung costs the platform nothing to ignore. This one puts a bill on the desk, which is also why the numbers are so small.

On who may act for you, Platform Control is the only one of the three that says so outright. Article 4(5): “Jede Partei kann sich durch einen Rechtsanwalt oder einen anderen bevollmächtigten Vertreter vertreten lassen.” Each party may be represented by a lawyer or another authorised representative, and it does not require a lawyer or a not-for-profit. ADR Center and ADR Point stop a step short: both let you be assisted by lawyers, experts and consultants you appoint and pay, which is not the same as someone standing in your place, and ADR Center additionally requires documented authority where a claim is filed by anyone other than the person actually harmed. Appeals Centre Europe’s rules contain no representation clause at all. Silence, not permission.

One year, against the app’s six months

Platform Control’s cut-off is one year from the moderation action, set by Article 6 lit. g of its rules. The DSA’s own internal-appeal window, by contrast, runs six months from notification. That difference is the whole point of this page.

Set that against the apps. Tinder’s appeal centre refuses a violation that occurred more than six months ago, in its own words, and OkCupid’s help centre is verbatim: “Your appeal must be submitted within 6 months of the date of the action you are contesting.” Hinge publishes no ban-appeal deadline anywhere.

So there is a six-month corridor in which the in-app appeal is shut and the German route is still open. If your Tinder ban is eight months old and the appeal centre will not look at it, the file is not closed. Pin your dates down first: the deadline calculator takes a minute.

The declarations are yours and cannot be made for you: full name, EU or EEA citizenship, age 16 or over, no other dispute body or court holding the same matter, and a legitimate interest.

German or English, and nothing else

Platform Control runs in two languages, German and English, and its rules have you pick one of them at filing. That is a real filter rather than a formality: the disputed content itself has to be in German or English, so everything you want read, including the case you build around a message in another language, has to arrive in one of those two.

It decides on the papers, and investigates nothing

Platform Control takes no evidence of its own. Under its rules it decides on what the parties put in front of it. No investigator, no request for internal logs, nobody to chase what you cannot get. The written case is the entire product.

That is harder than it sounds, because the apps have written themselves permission to tell you nothing. Hinge states it does not respond to inquiries about bans and does not put the ban reason in a data export, and Tinder, OkCupid and Plenty of Fish each reserve, in near-identical wording, the right not to say why.

A subject access request gets you what they hold, on a statutory clock, and it is a different instrument from an erasure request, which destroys your own evidence: the data-rights guide separates them. Then the writing matters more here than anywhere, because there is no second reviewer and no conversation.

The decisive limit: nobody has to obey it

This has to be said plainly, because a page that buried it would be selling you something. Article 21(2): the certified out-of-court dispute settlement body shall not have the power to impose a binding settlement of the dispute on the parties. Platform Control cannot order Tinder to give your account back. Neither can any other body. Anyone who tells you otherwise is confused or lying.

Match Group says the same. Its DSA page acknowledges Article 21, points users at the Commission list, names no certified body and commits to nothing about engaging. Article 21(2) also lets a platform refuse a dispute already resolved or resting on identical information. And appearing on a body’s intake dropdown is that body’s choice, not the app’s consent.

So what does the route buy? Movement, on the platforms’ own numbers.

• Hinge, 2025 EU filing. 636 disputes went to out-of-court bodies: 136 decisions upheld, 161 reversed, 4 partially reversed, 334 with the decision omitted. Hinge implemented 72.05 per cent of outcomes.
• Tinder, 2025 EU filing. 335 disputes: 73 upheld, 66 reversed, 1 partially reversed, 195 with the decision omitted. Tinder implemented about 62 per cent.
• Plenty of Fish, corrected 2025 filing. Exactly one dispute all year. Nothing upheld, one decision reversed, and POF implemented the outcome. The user won.

Read honestly, that says two things. A non-binding decision is followed most of the time, which is far better than nothing and far short of an order. And a large share of cases is logged with the decision omitted, a hole in the middle of the only public data there is. Nobody has published outcome data for a dating-app case specifically, and we will not invent it.

How slow it really is

Very. Hinge’s own filing puts the median out-of-court dispute at 1,209 and Tinder’s at 1,261. Neither company labels the unit on that field, so we are not going to convert it into days for you and neither should anyone else. Platform Control’s own rules promise a decision inside 90 days, extendable to 180 with reasons, and that is the one figure here that arrives with a unit attached.

Now the in-app appeal, the same field in the same filings: Hinge’s median was 19, Tinder’s 20. Same scale, same return, roughly sixty times quicker, and that settles the sequencing argument on its own. Nor is the internal appeal a formality: Hinge took 86,650 complaints about a suspended or terminated account in 2025, upheld 55,399 and reversed 31,251, a reversal rate of 36.07 per cent. Tinder took 66,877, upheld 52,399 and reversed 14,478, closer to one in five.

Who this route does not help

Most people, frankly. Specifically:

• Everyone outside the EU and EEA. Platform Control requires you to declare EU or EEA citizenship and to be 16 or over. An American, Canadian or Australian ban has no equivalent referee.
• The United Kingdom, which has nothing like it. The Online Safety Act does reach bans: section 21(4)(d) makes it a relevant complaint where a provider has warned, suspended or banned a user. But section 21 only requires the provider to operate a complaints procedure. There is no private right of action, no UK dispute body, no ombudsman, and no route by which Ofcom looks at one person’s account. Anything sold to a British user as a statutory route to reinstatement is unsupportable.
• Bumble and Badoo users, at this body at least. Neither is named by Platform Control, and neither appears in the Commission register under any body. The route is not closed to them, it is just somewhere else: ADR Center’s intake form names both, and ADR Point’s names Bumble. Badoo’s own transparency report records just two such disputes in a year, against 127,648 appeals, so it is barely used even where it is offered.
• Grindr users. No certified body names Grindr anywhere. Grindr’s own DSA page still says no bodies have been certified and the procedure is not established, now out of date, but the practical answer is the same.
• Facebook Dating users. No body names Facebook Dating, but a Dating loss is nearly always a Facebook account action, and Appeals Centre Europe does review Facebook account suspensions.
• Users of apps that name nobody. Breeze offers the route and names no body. Hily names none, and its own report confirms no dispute has ever reached one. Zoosk’s terms would not load on any path we tried, so we cannot tell you what it offers.

If you are on that list the ladder is different rather than absent, and it starts with the in-app appeal done properly. The free check says which routes are open on your app, the guide walks the sequence, and a case gets it drafted.

Questions people actually ask

What is Platform Control, in one sentence?

A German body certified by the Bundesnetzagentur on 4 November 2025 as an out-of-court dispute settlement body under Article 21 of the Digital Services Act, and the only body in the European Commission’s register whose published scope names dating apps.

Which dating apps does it actually cover?

Tinder, Hinge and OkCupid, named in the register alongside YouTube, Google Maps and Reddit. Mind the gap: Platform Control’s own rules of procedure name no platform at all, so that list lives in the register rather than in the binding document. Published scope, not a guarantee a case will be taken.

Does it cover Bumble or Badoo?

Not this body, but two others do. Bumble is not named by Platform Control, and neither Bumble nor Badoo appears in the Commission register under any body. They are covered elsewhere: ADR Center in Italy names Bumble and Badoo on its intake form, and ADR Point in Greece names Bumble. Both are free to you, both want you to have complained inside the app first, and neither can bind the platform any more than Platform Control can.

Does any certified body cover Grindr?

No. We checked the Commission register, the bodies’ own published rules and their live intake forms, and Grindr appears in none of them. Grindr’s own DSA page still tells users no bodies have been certified and the procedure is not established.

What does it cost me?

Nothing. Article 4(2) of Platform Control’s rules makes the procedure free to the user, with one exception: a filing it treats as clearly malicious, where the fees can be shifted onto you. Otherwise the platform carries the cost.

Do I have to appeal inside the app first?

Not at Platform Control, and that is a genuine advantage of it: its rules drop the prior internal appeal, where ADR Center and ADR Point both require one. Appeal in the app first anyway. It is free, it is far quicker than the out-of-court route on both companies’ own 2025 filings, and it reversed 31,251 of 86,650 Hinge cases. Article 21 is the rung above the in-app appeal, not a way around it.

How long do I have to file?

One year from the moderation action, set by Article 6 lit. g of Platform Control’s rules. Date it from the action itself, not from the day you noticed it.

My six-month Tinder window has closed. Is this still open?

Possibly, and it is the most useful thing on this page. Tinder refuses appeals for a violation more than six months old and OkCupid publishes the same six-month rule, while Platform Control runs to a year. That leaves a real corridor for a case the app itself will no longer look at. Check your dates before assuming anything.

Can it order Tinder to reinstate my account?

No, and nobody can. Article 21(2) states that a certified body shall not have the power to impose a binding settlement on the parties. Match Group’s own DSA page acknowledges Article 21, names no body and promises nothing about engaging. What the filings show is that platforms often follow these decisions anyway: Hinge implemented 72.05 per cent of out-of-court outcomes in 2025, Tinder about 62 per cent.

How long does the whole thing take?

Slowly. Hinge’s 2025 filing puts the median out-of-court dispute at 1,209 and Tinder’s at 1,261, against 19 and 20 for the in-app appeal in the same returns. Neither company labels the unit, so read it as roughly sixty times slower rather than as a number of days. Platform Control’s own rules promise a decision inside 90 days, extendable to 180 with reasons.

Does it have to be in German?

German or English, and Article 4(6) has you choose one at filing. There is no third option, so everything you want read has to arrive in one of those two languages, whichever app it was.

Will they investigate what really happened?

No. Under its own rules the body takes no evidence of its own and decides on what the parties submit. No discovery, no subpoena, no hearing. The written case is the entire product, which is exactly why a rushed filing here is worse than no filing.

Can someone file it for me?

At Platform Control, yes, and it is the only one of the three that says so. Article 4(5) reads “Jede Partei kann sich durch einen Rechtsanwalt oder einen anderen bevollmächtigten Vertreter vertreten lassen” - a lawyer or another authorised representative. ADR Center and ADR Point go a step less far: both let you be assisted by a lawyer, expert or consultant rather than represented outright, and ADR Center wants documented authority if the person filing is not the person harmed. Appeals Centre Europe’s rules say nothing either way. Your declarations about residence, age and legitimate interest still have to be yours.

I am in the UK. Is there a British equivalent?

No. The Online Safety Act makes a ban a relevant complaint under section 21(4)(d), but section 21 only obliges the platform to run a complaints procedure. There is no private right of action, no UK dispute settlement body and no ombudsman, and Ofcom does not look at individual accounts. Anyone selling a UK statutory route to reinstatement is selling something that does not exist.