How can social networks safeguard users with biometric authentication?

Trolling is a growing issue for social networks, forums, news sites, and any online site where someone can anonymously comment without any real repercussions. 71% of people don’t feel like social platforms are doing enough to fight the problem of virtual harassment.

Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are working to reduce trolling. When fake or abusive accounts get reported, what efforts do they actually make to ensure the troll doesn’t just set up another account under an anonymous or fake alias? Twitter recently banned high profile celebrities for their abusive tweets, such as Katie Hopkins and Wiley for breaking the conduct rules. But how can they prevent future abuse?

In a recent interview with the i, iProov CEO Andrew Bud, CBE said: “The scope for minor key forms of terror that can be injected into social networks if you don’t have good accountability of people’s behaviour is huge, and face verification is the way in which you can identify and stop trolls. iProov has the capability to do that on a very large scale, very reliably.”

At iProov, our mission is to make the internet a safer place, by building trust online with our biometric authentication technology. There is great potential for the introduction of biometrics to verify users on social platforms and safeguard communities from abusive behaviour. In early July we helped launch the first use of biometric safeguarding with an intergenerational mentoring platform, bloomd. The launch of the platform, originally planned for later this year, was brought forward to help support those impacted by loneliness or isolation during the pandemic.

bloomd uses biometric authentication as a ‘virtual doorperson’ so that anyone who violates the code of conduct will be banned, even if they attempt to sign up with a different name or email address. Not only does this safeguard the users within the community, but it will hold people accountable to misuse or trolling.

By integrating iProov’s Genuine Presence Assurance into the registration process, social platforms will ensure that users are real humans and not bots. Our biometric authentication confirms in a short ceremony that the user is the right person, a real person, and authenticating right now. The one-time biometric prevents account takeover from cyber criminals. iProov provides a secure way of preventing trolls from signing up under a different name to continue their abusive behaviour, as their iProov authentication will confirm if they have been banned previously.

So how long will it take for more social networks to protect their users from trolls and fake news? We hope platforms like bloomd will set a precedent for change. To find out more about how bloomd works, watch the webcast here.

Read more on how iProov can be used for safeguarding here.