Tinder has a secret scoring system that shows how 'desirable' people are

The score isn't easily accessible by normal people — but decides who you see on the app

(Tinder)

Tinder gives everyone a secret score that shows how desirable they are.

The company uses a secretive algorithm to decide exactly how attractive a person might be to others, compares that with other users of the site, and uses it to decide who to match people with.

Normal people can’t access the score, through the app or in any other simple way. But the company itself can look up users with just their email address, and find their score in an instant.

Tinder CEO Sean Rad said that the rating isn’t technically a measure of how attractive you are, but rather how “desirable” you are. That’s because it uses more than just the attractiveness of the profile photo.

"It’s not just how many people swipe right on you," Mr Rad told Fast Company, which first reported the secret score. "It’s very complicated. It took us two and a half months just to build the algorithm because a lot of factors go into it."

The app uses a range of different pieces of data to calculate the score, according to Fast Company. The magazine speculated that could include information like how many of your swipes are reciprocated, and the kinds and amount of information that you have in your profile.

The company has compared the scoring system to that in the online game Warcraft, in the way that it allows people who get swiped by others with higher scores to gain more points from that interaction.

Tinder staff also likened it to a vast league table. Swiping right on one and left on another means that they can be compared — and potentially stitched together to form a huge list of who is most likely to have be desirable.

Other members of staff did make clear that the points system shouldn’t be seen as an absolute measure of how desirable people are. Some people might like beards or tattoos, for instance, while others might hate them.