Tinder is rolling out an AI-powered update to its photo verification feature today that has allowed the app’s users to prove to others that they’re not a bot or catfisher. In the past, users would take pictures of themselves, pose as instructed, to get verified on the dating app and receive a blue check mark. Now Tinder is amplifying this process by requiring a video selfie instead of photos. In addition, users will soon be able to limit their chats to only those members who also have photo verification.
The company says the changes are part of Tinder’s work to make the app safer for its members.
However, the feature also comes at a time when it has become much easier to use AI tools to create fake photos and personas, which could fill dating apps with fake people who are really just bots ready to sell their matches. spamming. Requiring a “liveliness” check, like a video selfie does, is a much stronger way to check that people are who they say they are and weed out spammers.
Tinder says it’s working with an outside partner to manage the video selfie verification process, rather than doing it in-house, but declined to name the vendor.
However, it explains that the new model first requires the user to complete a series of video prompts, which the AI then uses to match that the person in the video also matches the person in the profile picture the user wants to verify.
As the updates roll out from Wednesday, users who want to be photo verified or want to keep their existing verification will need to take a video selfie. The feature will completely replace the previous option to upload photos.
Existing photo verification will soon receive in-app prompts to upgrade to the latest version of photo verification if they want to keep their blue ticks on Tinder, the company notes. This not only ensures that members are verified through the more robust video selfie feature, but also solves the problem of expired Tinder users returning to the app where their verified photos are now years old.
In addition to updating the feature to use videos instead of photos, Tinder will later introduce new features that allow users to see only other Photo Verified members in their recommendations, through their messaging settings. And it allows members to ask their Matches for photo verification before they are allowed to message. (However, it’s hard to imagine how this will make for a good first impression!)
Tinder Gold subscribers, meanwhile, can only filter their “Likes” page for Photo Verified members.
The company claims that photo verification has been proven to increase the number of matches on the service because users are more confident that their potential match is a real person, not a bot, and that they look like their photos. Tinder says among its 18- to 25-year-old users that Photo Verified gives them a 10% higher chance of being matched, for example.
The photo-verification feature is rolling out to Tinder’s global users today, while the ability to limit posts to only “photo-verified members” will arrive in the “coming months,” Tinder says.