comparison group, operates one of the world’s largest dating app categories, will add new profile verification soon Dating app Coupling. The feature is part of a larger effort to crack down on scammers who use fake photos and intentionally become people they aren’t on the app, often with the end goal of plot to conquer romance with money.
Jarryd Boyd, Hinge’s director of brand communications, said in a written statement that Hinge will begin rolling out a feature called Selfie Verification next month. Hinge will ask users to take a selfie video in the app to confirm they are real people and not digital dummies. Then, Match Group plans to use a combination of machine learning and human moderators to “compare face shapes from selfie videos with photos on users’ profiles,” Boyd said. Once the video is confirmed as authentic, the user will receive a “Verified” badge on their Hinge profile.
This move follows a recent WIRED story highlighting the rise of fake accounts on the Hinge dating app. These fake profiles are often adorned with glossy photos of attractive people, although there is something puzzling about their perfection. The person usually “just joined” the dating app. Their descriptions of themselves or their responses to prompts are meaningless, an indication that a person may be using a translation app to try to connect with someone in their native language . And in many cases, the person on the other end of the fraud profile will urge their match to move the conversation away from the app — a strategy that allows them to keep the conversation going even after the cheater boot from Hinge.
Before December, Selfie Verification will be available to all Hinge users worldwide, including those in the US, UK, Canada, India, Australia, Germany, France and more than one dozens of other countries.
“As romance scammers find new ways to scam people, we are committed to investing in updates and new technology to prevent damage to our data sets,” said Boyd. speak.
The hinge is one of many dating apps owned by Match Group, and it’s not the first to use facial recognition to try to spot counterfeits. Before that, Tinder and Plenty of Fish had photo verification tools. In August, a Match Group spokesperson told WIRED that visual verification will be coming to Hinge, OKCupid, and Match.com “in the coming months.”
Match Group has also highlighted that it has a Trust & Safety team consisting of more than 450 employees working on many of the company’s dating apps, and last year Match Group invested more than $125 million in building new technology. “Helps with safe dating. “Four years ago, it established an advisory council to devise policies to prevent harassment, sexual assault and sex trafficking.
The company’s implementation of video verification tools on Hinge is long overdue — and possibly ineffective. Match Group also hasn’t responded to a series of follow-up questions, so it’s unclear whether video verification will be a requirement for all Hinge users or optional.
That’s really me
Maggie Oates, an independent privacy and security researcher who also programmed a game about privacy and prostitution called OnlyBans, said in an email that she truly believes biometric authentication should be optional and encouraged in dating apps, but not required. Multi-pronged verification can be more effective, says Oates, with the added benefit of giving users options. “Not everyone is comfortable with biometrics. Not everyone has a driver’s license. Online identity verification is a really tough problem.”
And she believes relying solely on facial recognition technology to verify profiles will only last so long.
