How ID verification can help verify users on Matrimonial sites

You cannot start walking on the road with your eyes blindfolded, you cannot get into a lifetime relationship by not knowing the person/family inside out. Wedding – once considered to be a family affair in India where parents used to decide and choose partners for their kids within their social circle. But nowadays the situation is different, youth is finding a partner in their friends, colleagues, clients, and sometimes strangers also whom they know through matrimonial sites. In this scenario, there are many unanswered questions which are critical in tying the nuptial knot.

What if the boy/girl is not who they claim to be? The most important question remains to be the identity of the person, and the authentication of their basic information before you connect online or proceed to indulge your interest in that person. Through Identity Verification, also dubbed Matrimony Verification, you can guarantee that the platform is secure for your customers and help them advance their relationships freely. 

Identity Verification and KYC are now widely adopted by many businesses online, be it fintech, eCommerce sites or even for online gaming. Digital Identity Verification helps users verify the online identity of people which would otherwise be opaque and cause uncertainty on a platform instead of building trust with the customers.  

Matrimonial apps and websites are being increasingly targeted by fraudsters who use deceptive practices, such as catfishing, to steal money or cause embarrassment to victims.

Losses from Romance Scams hit a record $547 million in 2021, FTC says—up 100% from 2020.

So the reasons for more security are clear. The verification of marriage proposals could be conducted with the complete Identity Proofing of the prospective bride or groom, but simplicity is key in making the ID verification process as effortless as possible for users.

With a Liveness Detection solution, service providers can achieve security, usability, inclusivity, and privacy to make ID verification as strong and hassle-free as possible.

Why is identity verification needed on Matrimonial Sites?

Scenario: An individual decides to “match” with a prospective partner. They introduce themselves and exchange messages before moving their conversation to another messaging platform. Beyond names and photos, the two individuals’ identities are not verified at any point during this process.

After a few weeks, the match expresses their inability to make their rent payment and requests a loan until the first of the month. The individual sends the money, but never hears from the match again—it was a fake profile made up of images easily found on social media, and the story was made up. The person feels duped by this platform and decides to delete the account or uninstall the app.

This is just one of many ways that people are exposed to matrimonial websites.

Predators and account hijackers are two other types of threats. Some people have been duped by accounts that use celebrity photos, and one woman even came across a deep fake video created to support a fake profile on a marriage site.

Of course, ID verification cannot prevent someone from transferring money to a scammer. However, with the right identity verification solution, such as IDcentral’s Identity Verification solution, you can enable users to take extra precautions against fake profiles.

Biometric Face Match can be used to effectively accomplish a variety of tasks to boost online authority:

Accountability

The most important benefit of biometric face verification for an online matrimonial site or social network is accountability. If you have to use your real name and face to register, it may deter criminal or antisocial behaviour because users understand that their actions can be traced back to them.

Accountability aids in dealing with three types of users that people want to avoid:

• Criminals: These are the users who use the platform specifically to target victims for fraud or other criminal purposes.
• Trolls: These are people who use the platform to be abusive or to offend or distress other users.
• Ordinary people who engage in antisocial behaviour when there is no accountability: These could be users who begin with a genuine desire to use the platform. However, they send an inappropriate joke, which may escalate to abuse or trolling, or they make another user feel uncomfortable or threatened, both of which they would never do in real life. When people believe there are no consequences for their online actions, they may behave inappropriately. Accountability can discourage this behaviour.

Enhanced safety and security

Users may feel more comfortable speaking with or meeting with someone if their identity has been verified. There have been numerous reports of predators creating false profiles, with the number of recorded sexual offences involving online dating sites more than doubling in four years. Users are also less likely to be targeted by trolls or fraudsters.

Improved user experience

Allowing users to be confident that they are speaking with a verified, genuine person reduces the likelihood of someone wasting time on the platform, resulting in increased engagement and brand trust.

Defend brand reputation 

Online matrimonial services and social networks owe it to their users to keep them safe from harm, whether physical, emotional, or financial.

When it comes to something as important as marriage, which frequently leads to in-person meetings, you want to make sure that people are who they say they are online.

How can liveness help the online dating sector? 

Liveness detection allows online matrimonial services to authenticate an online user’s identity. It employs a biometric face trace to ensure that a remote individual is a correct and real person. This procedure can aid in the prevention of the creation of bogus matrimonial profiles, which can then be used for fraud, catfishing, and trolling.

How digital ID Verification can ensure that Matrimonial Verification is secure, inclusive, and convenient? 

IDcentral’s digital ID Verification provides all of the benefits of secure Digital Onboarding, including greater accuracy in determining whether a user is a right person and a real person. It also verifies that the user is authenticating in real-time, which protects against digitally injected attacks that use deep fakes or other synthetic media, as well as an ID check, which uses OCR technology to read and verify the authenticity of the ID document by directly matching it with a secure government database source.

How does the Identity Verification process work?

When a user registers with an online dating site or app, the IDcentral Identity Verification API takes over, and the solution verifies their identity by scanning a trusted document, such as a driver’s licence, and then scanning their face to confirm that they are the owner of that identity.

IDcentral’s ID verification solution provides four significant advantages:

• Security: IDcentral checks to make sure that the user is authenticating in real-time and is the right person.
• Seamless Integration: People will not use it if it is difficult to use. People like dating apps because they are simple to use—you can bring that same streamlined integration of ID verification to matrimonial sites, which are also simple to use: the user looks at their device, and the device looks back.
• Inclusivity: Social networks and online matrimonial services must be as inclusive as possible. Otherwise, the companies risk being accused of discriminating against certain segments of the population. IDcentral’s solution eliminates the need to read and comprehend complex instructions; instead, you simply look at your device’s user-facing camera.
• Privacy:  IDcentral respects the privacy of its users. Face recognition, which is frequently used in surveillance and other applications, operates quite differently from Face Match and Face Trace. With Face Match, a user is aware of what is going on, actively participates in it, directly benefits from it, and their privacy is maintained.

Another advantage of implementing identity verification is that it can be used for continuous authentication. When users return to the app, they show their faces to prove they are the right person, a real person, and that their presence is authenticated. This means that no one else can ever access that account, send messages, or do anything else that they later claim they did not do.

Book your IDcentral demo today to learn how IDcentral’s technology can secure and streamline identity verification for your online Matrimonial Website or dating platform.

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