Tinder is trialing necessary facial recognition security measures within the US to confirm profiles and crack down on impersonation and faux accounts. New customers in California at the moment are required to offer a biometric “Face Test” scan to substantiate their face matches their profile pictures for the relationship service, Axios reported on Monday.
The Face Test characteristic entails taking a brief video selfie that’s used to match biometric indicators and show that the Tinder consumer isn’t a bot utilizing artificially generated pictures, offering them with a verified badge upon completion. The scan will even examine if the consumer’s face is being utilized in a number of accounts, which might assist to forestall customers from being impersonated or having their likeness utilized by misleading “catfish” profiles.
Face Test is separate from Tinder’s ID Test characteristic, which makes use of government-issued ID to confirm customers’ age and identification, whereas Face Test seemingly solely requires customers to add a selfie video. Tinder customers have supplied video selfies to confirm their profiles since 2023, however verification wasn’t a compulsory requirement for making a Tinder account. This alteration implies that Californians must full some model of verification in the event that they need to use the platform in any respect.
“We see this as one a part of a set of identification assurance choices which might be accessible to customers,” Match Group’s head of belief and security, Yoel Roth, instructed Axios. “Face Test … is basically meant to be about confirming that this individual is an actual, reside individual and never a bot or a spoofed account.”
Tinder says the selfie video is deleted as soon as verification is full, however that the platform shops a “non-reversible, encrypted face map” to detect duplicate consumer accounts sooner or later.
The Face Test characteristic has already been piloted in Colombia and Canada, with Roth telling Axios that these exams confirmed “promising” leads to “bettering perceptions of authenticity” and lowering stories of dangerous actors. Tinder will now monitor how customers in California reply to the Face Test characteristic earlier than deciding if it ought to be rolled out extra broadly throughout the US, in keeping with Roth.