Today’s society is having a blast with exciting matchmaking capabilities of the Internet. Online dating has developed into a whole complex of activities, where people are looking not only for their potential significant other but also for a way to entertain themselves. Facial recognition technology offers the dating industry plenty of opportunities to attract and retain users while also helping to address a number of security issues.
A tricky market to conquer
Over 8000 online services are offering a wide range of dating opportunities for all groups of people. Dating websites and apps cover almost every niche there is, and rightly so because it’s hard to imagine a more trend-sensitive industry. The ever-altering structure of our society is directly shaping an online dating paradigm, and its diverse demands get immediately addressed by the corresponding market.
From the industry player perspective, it’s a struggle to get an online dating service up and running in such a highly competitive environment. In order to become functional, one cannot avoid amassing a sizeable user base, which gets further complicated by the need to proactively maintain it. Given the sensitive nature of the business, security becomes a cornerstone factor in this endeavor.
Trust is everything
There’s no denying that online dating has a lot of room for devious practices. Those can range from user scams and blackmail to account fraud and even child abuse. According to Federal Trade Commission data, in 2019 dating service users lost over $ 200 million to romance scams. There are also plenty of other issues that are not as harmful, yet nonetheless, factor into the overall dating platform reputation. And reputation has far more significant value when it comes to establishing close relationships between people.
As a result, people become extremely cautious about signing up with online dating services and entrusting them with relevant information. This leads to ambiguity and uncertainty, rendering a good portion of connections ineffectual, which fuels user base frustration and skepticism. Eventually, a lot of users cease any efforts and leave the platform or even give up on online dating for good. Creating a safe and fair environment is the fundamental objective every dating service must strive to achieve to be successful.
Improved security prospects
The facial recognition technology offers exceptional capabilities for online dating services in terms of establishing control and maintaining a healthy atmosphere, urging people to be more open by eliminating all kinds of potential threats. It can be utilized as a means of verification to prevent duplicate accounts or fresh account benefits abuse while ensuring frictionless customer experience.
Face recognition will be especially useful for mobile dating apps, as the mobile platform encompasses all the necessary technical capabilities for seamless integration. A dating app with an onboard facial recognition system will be able to instantly verify the account owner and ensure that everyone he connects with is a real person as well.
Identity verification is not the only asset of facial recognition. With the recent advancements, it has become possible to detect the age quite accurately, which allows for preventing minors from accessing the dating platform. Child abuse via dating apps is one of the most pressing and vile issues faced in the online dating sphere, and its elimination gives immeasurable value to the service along with an edge over the competition.
Other beneficial implementations
As it is widely known, everyone has a type when it comes to choosing a partner by the looks. Some people prefer stronger facial features, others scorn ginger hair — let’s not be judgemental here, it is what it is. There are also plenty of people so obsessed with celebrities that they value likeness to their idol above all other qualities. In this case, facial recognition opens up vast opportunities for engaging users in search-related activities. It can serve as an additional gamification tool for creating fun and shareable experiences, which positively affect the platform’s image and popularity.
In the pursuit of openness and user comfort, it is worth keeping in mind that online dating is a business and only a profitable one gets to ensure its successful operation through the years and decades to come. An overwhelming majority of dating platforms live off of various premium services, and keeping the users in motion is the cornerstone task for them. A user base consisting of verified people will naturally be more valuable in terms of marketing campaign returns. Everything, from social media ads to email campaigns, will be showing considerably higher results with benefits granted by the adoption of facial biometrics.
We at NtechLab believe that collaboration with online dating services is the right path to take, and it is bound to boost the industry’s integrity even further. Undoubtedly, a website or an app equipped with a face recognition system becomes more reliable and attractive in the eyes of the users. This, in turn, creates a solid ground for a highly loyal community appreciating honesty, reliability, and engagement.
Want to step up your game in the online dating market? Look no further than FindFace with its clever algorithms capable of identifying a person in a fraction of a second.