Andrew Steele
Andrew Steele founded Guardian Flame, a dating safety app using mandatory government ID and crowdsourced risk scores, presenting a new model for online dating safety.
Maintained by the High Intent newsroom. Last updated July 31, 2026. Led by founder and CEO Bill Alena, backed by a team of industry experts with over 100 years of online dating experience between them.
Who Andrew Steele is
Andrew Steele is the founder of Guardian Flame, a New Zealand startup focused on enhancing safety within the online dating industry. Guardian Flame distinguishes itself by requiring mandatory government identification from its users. This approach aims to verify user identities more rigorously than many established dating platforms. The app also incorporates crowdsourced risk scores as a mechanism to identify and address potentially dangerous user behavior. This feature allows the community to contribute to the overall safety environment. Steele's venture with Guardian Flame directly addresses challenges such as harassment and bias that major dating platforms have historically struggled to mitigate effectively. The model implemented by Guardian Flame is being observed as a potential influence on future industry standards for safety and identity verification within online dating.
Questions operators ask about Andrew Steele
Andrew Steele is the founder of Guardian Flame, a New Zealand-based dating safety app. He has introduced a new model for online dating safety by integrating mandatory government ID verification and crowdsourced risk assessments into the platform's core functionality.
Our coverage of Andrew Steele
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Guardian Flame Built the Safety System Big Platforms Refused ToNew Zealand startup Guardian Flame launched a dating safety app requiring mandatory government ID and crowdsourced risk scores. This model aims to address dangerous user behavior that major platforms have avoided due to risks like harassment and bias. Operators should monitor this experiment as its success or failure will influence future industry approaches to safety and identity verification.
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