IT Blog

After leaving an abusive relationship, Kathryn Kosmides spent $150,000 trying to shield herself from her ex’s escalating harassment. When she learned that most of her legal action would not be publicly accessible, she filed a civil suit to create a public record of her ex’s behavior. “That was my form of justice,” she says, “being able to protect the next woman from this experience.”

But as Kosmides realized just how difficult—and expensive—it was to access public records, even in instances of gender-based violence, she was driven to create the nonprofit background check platform Garbo, which empowers individuals to access public records of violent crimes for a nominal fee.

With just a first name and phone number, Garbo users can look up records for someone they’ve matched with on an online dating app. Following a seven-figure investment by online dating behemoth (and Tinder parent company) Match Group in March, Garbo’s technology—which scours public records…