When fake profiles mean real problems for love

IF THE Beatles had written Eleanor Rigby today, the chorus might have gone thusly instead: “All the lonely people… Are they even people?”

It’s a fair question to ask of dating apps plagued by catfishers and scammers, and Tinder is trying to answer that question better with its identity verification feature.

Last week, the dating app said that it would roll this feature out in the US, UK, Brazil and Mexico after trialling it in Australia and New Zealand last year. Users will have the option of submitting their driving licence or passport, which must match a video selfie and their profile photo in order to get a checkmark on their profile.

Tinder users in Singapore will welcome this feature if or when it is rolled out here. A YouGov survey this year found that among those who are single and looking, the main reason they had not tried dating apps was the prospect of being catfished with fake or misleading profiles on these platforms.

Today, even among those interested in love and not larceny, the range of dissemblance grows ever wider thanks to technology – profile photos can be airbrushed, artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to write fake biographies, and even after a conversation has begun, AI can be used to generate your responses to potential mates.

Around 2013, the Internet overtook friends as the most popular means of finding a mate for the first time, for heterosexual couples in the US. Since then, dating apps have increasingly undertaken the vetting and vouching that well-meaning mutual acquaintances used to shoulder (“She has a nice personality!”).

Along with that, the platforms have had to grapple with the attendant issues of safety, compatibility and quality of any resulting meeting in real life.

These are outsized responsibilities for an app to bear – especially one characterised by the flippant mechanics of “swiping left” and “swiping right” – but here we are.

And while Match Group and its rival Bumble have cornered the online dating market, they will have to fight to stay relevant. In Singapore, for example, the YouGov study found that 42 per cent of millennials have ever used a dating app, but that figure is lower for their younger Generation Z peers, at 36 per cent.

Elsewhere, the young are reaching back in time for solutions.

A nationwide survey of college and graduate students in the US last year found that 79 per cent of respondents don’t use any dating apps at all, with an “overwhelming majority” of them saying that they prefer meeting people in person.

In the US and the UK, daters are putting a new twist on the old idea of personal ads, circulating resumes called “date-me docs” online which friends can then pass on to potential matches within their network (“Her date-me doc really showcases her nice personality!”).

This search for authenticity will only intensify, and the longevity of dating apps will hinge on how well they can curb disingenuous behaviour on their platforms.

Today, the world likely has more lonely people compared to when Eleanor Rigby was released in 1966, but the questions asked in the song remain pertinent. If dating apps are to continue solving the age-old problem of “Where do they all belong?”, they must get better at answering: “Where do they all come from?”