August 26 2021
We were very interested to see that Tinder will be introducing ID verification to its dating app. They’re aiming to make users feel safer and provide “more confidence that their matches are authentic”.
iProov predicted this back in December 2020. Dating apps and websites are increasingly being targeted by fraudsters who use deceptive dating practices, such as catfishing, to steal money or cause embarrassment to victims. In 2020, record losses of $304m were attributed to romance scams—up 50% from 2019.
So the reasons for more security are clear. But Tinder is famous for its swipe left/right simplicity. How can they, and other social networks, make the ID verification process as effortless as possible for users?
iProov isn’t providing the technology for Tinder, but we know how online dating apps and social networks can achieve security with simplicity: Genuine Presence Assurance. With Genuine Presence Assurance, service providers can achieve security, usability, inclusivity, and privacy to make ID verification as strong and hassle-free as possible.
Scenario: A man sees he has a “match” on a dating app. They make introductions and exchange messages, eventually moving their conversation onto another messaging platform. The identity of the two individuals is not verified at any point during this process, beyond names and photos.
After a few weeks, the match says that they’re struggling to make their rent payment and asks if they could borrow money until the first of the month. The man sends the money. He then never hears from the match again—it was a fake profile, created using pictures easily found on social media, and the story was fabricated. The man uninstalls the app.
This is just one of many ways in which people are vulnerable on dating apps. Other threats include predators and account hijackers. Some people have been scammed by accounts using celebrities’ photos, and one woman even encountered a deepfake video created to support a fake profile on a dating site.
Tinder has realized that many of its users want some protection from these threats: they want to know who’s on the other side of the screen. Of course, ID verification can’t stop someone from transferring money to a scammer. But with the right identity verification solution, like iProov’s Genuine Presence Assurance, you can enable users to take extra precautions against fake profiles.
A number of things can be achieved using biometric face verification:
Accountability is the most important thing that biometric face verification brings to an online dating platform or social network. If you have to use your real face and identity to register, it could discourage criminal or antisocial behavior because users understand that their actions can be linked back to them.
Accountability helps with three types of users that people will want to avoid:
Users can feel safer talking to or meeting with someone if their identity is verified. There have been many cases of predators using fake profiles, with the number of recorded sexual offenses involving online dating sites doubling over four years. Users are also less likely to be targeted by fraudsters or trolls.
Enabling users to be confident that they are talking to a verified, genuine person reduces the likelihood of someone wasting their time on the platform, leading to increased engagement and brand trust.
Online dating services and social networks have a responsibility to protect their users from harm, whether physical, emotional, or financial.
For something as important as dating, which often leads to real-life meetings, you want to be sure that people are who they say they are online.
Liveness detection enables online dating services to authenticate the identity of an online user. It uses a biometric face scan to verify that a remote individual is the right person and a real person. This process can help to defend against the creation of fake dating profiles, which can then be used for fraud, catfishing and trolling. Read more about iProov Liveness Assurance.
iProov’s Genuine Presence Assurance delivers all the benefits of liveness detection—it provides greater accuracy that a user is the right person and a real person. It also verifies that the user is authenticating right now—this protects against the use of digital injected attacks that use deepfakes or other synthetic media.
How does it work?
When a user onboards to an online dating app or social network, the service can ask the user to iProov. They verify their identity by scanning a trusted document, such as a driver’s license, and then scanning their face to confirm that they are the owner of that identity.
iProov Genuine Presence Assurance delivers four benefits:
The additional benefit of implementing Genuine Presence Assurance is that it can be used for ongoing authentication. Whenever users return to use the app again, they present their face and prove they are the right person, a real person, and that they are authenticating right now. This means that nobody else can ever access that account, or send messages, or carry out any activity that they then insist they had not done.
If you’d like to know how iProov technology could secure and streamline identity verification for your online dating app or other social network, book your iProov demo here today.