OPW - Oct 18 - Internet dating users don’t like showing up at dates to find they’re meeting someone they don’t recognize. The industry can do better to help users not have these nasty surprises. John’s helping with that cause. - Mark Brooks
You verify photos, how do you do that?
We have a patent pending system to combat the problem that it is easy to create fake personas online. PhotoVerified makes sure that photos are recent and authenticated by your system. Unlike other processes who have tried a similar thing ours involves a human element. Technical [solutions] help with filtering but every photo is looked at by one of our verifiers.
Where are your people based? You must have a low cost base in order to have real people. Are they offshore?
Our main base is currently in Toronto but we are looking at offshore data centers.
How do you make sure that the photos are really of the people who are on the service?
When you sign up our system generates a unique code for you to display in the photo you are going to send to us. We ask people to write their code down on a piece of paper using a black marker then we ask them to crumple up the paper and flatten it back out again. It is a lot harder to Photoshop a code into a crumpled piece of paper. This photo then goes to our verification system. Verifier doesn’t know the code. All they are seeing is a photo of a person and a code. They type in the code or reject outright for reasons such as person covering face. Assuming everything is good, verifier types in code and clicks accept. If code is incorrect and the system doesn’t recognize it then it escalates to another verifier. The first person could have just made a typo. Second verifier doesn’t know someone already saw this photo so if the next verifier types in correct code then its fine. If the code is bad again then it’s escalated to a manager who can see more info, possibly it’s just sloppy hand writing.
I love the crumpled up paper part, is that the part that’s patented? What part of the process have you locked down?
We don’t have a patent issued yet, it’s still pending but it is part of the patent as well as other technical details that allow us to filter out signs of potential manipulation. Other thing is that we use a timer so it limits the ability to manipulate.
What’s your service cost?
Less than if you were trying to do this in house.
