Coffee Meets Bagel's Singpass check: Why I'll swipe right on that

Straits Times

5 days ago

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On June 9, Coffee Meets Bagel started using Singpass authentication to verify its local users.
I knew I would probably have to kiss many frogs before I found my prince, but I did not expect to have to scrutinise if the frogs were real in the first place.
Roland looked and sounded like a dream – 39 years old, a corporate lawyer with a start-up on the side, pictures of him in a fancy car and at a yacht party enjoying cocktails, and a bio so polished it could have been written by a branding consultant.
But the scripted perfection felt off.
In our text conversations, his responses were stilted and unnatural. His favourite food was chicken rice, and his favourite place to catch a sunset was at Marina Bay Sands. His poison of choice at a bar? The Singapore Sling.
In the four days I chatted with him, every day on the dot at noon, he would ask if I had eaten. Every night at 10.30pm, I would get a good night message wishing me sweet dreams.
Days later, his profile was quietly deleted. Had I been romanced by an artificial intelligence-generated Romeo? I would never know – but I had a strong suspicion that I was.
Profiles like Roland's are becoming more common – and more deceptive. With the rise of generative AI, it is no longer far-fetched to wonder if I am flirting with a bot.
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One dating app has moved to stamp out fake dating profiles.
On June 9, Coffee Meets Bagel (CMB)
started using Singpass authentication to verify its local users.
The one-time verification process involves the CMB app retrieving users' NRIC number or Foreign Identification Number, date of birth, marital status and gender from government records.
With Singpass verification, users like me gain rare certainty in a world of fakes: that the person I'm chatting with is who they say they are – not married, not lying about their age, and not some bot.
That can only rebuild trust in an increasingly complex digital world, where tricksters with nefarious purposes have more advanced tools to obfuscate their identities.
A Bloomberg story in 2024 found that fraudsters are using AI tools such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini to create fake dating profiles.
In recent times, it is also becoming increasingly common to see profiles with pictures that are either a little too perfectly edited or look AI-generated.
I hesitate to swipe on such profiles – I am not sure if someone is leveraging AI to bolster their attractiveness; or if a scammer or bot is behind such accounts.
Even without AI, fake and misleading accounts have been a problem on dating apps.
When I first downloaded dating apps three years ago after I was fresh out of a decade-long relationship, I was ready for awkward first dates, rejection and even ghosting.
Instead, I found married men with blurred profile pictures looking for a one-night stand, scammers impersonating popular local influencers, and supposed rich Chinese businessmen a little too eager to promote their investments.
My friend was shattered when she eventually discovered that a man she had been seeing from a dating app for three months was in fact six years older than he claimed, and was married.
A
YouGov survey published in February 2024 found that three-quarters of Singaporeans have never used a dating app before. When asked why, 27 per cent said that they were concerned about fake or misleading dating app profiles.
Apart from CMB, other major dating apps commonly used in Singapore have some way to go towards addressing this concern.
OkCupid, Hinge and Tinder will match a user's recorded video selfies along with their profile pictures. But this only proves a person's identity, and does not verify age or marital status.
As at June 10, Bumble has allowed for identity verification with Government-issued IDs in Singapore, but the move is optional.
In contrast, CMB users who choose not to verify their identities with Singpass authentication risk losing out on connections because verified users have the option to filter out unverified profiles.
This elevates CMB above its competitors, further bolstering its reputation as a dating app for those looking for a serious relationship.
The benefits of CMB's move go beyond restoring trust and confidence in dating apps. More crucially, it helps to promote safety.
CMB's head of trust and safety Rachel Tee previously told ST that with government-backed verification, the platform will be able to significantly reduce the number of scam profiles that require manual moderation.
This means that CMB will have more bandwidth to deal with more serious cases such as harassment, inappropriate messages or even offline misconduct.
I have heard many anecdotal accounts from friends who have received unsolicited nude images from people they met on dating apps. Another had to deal with constant calls and messages from a man who could not handle rejection.
There are also more serious cases that have gone before the courts.
In August 2024, 25 year-old Terrell See was jailed for threatening to distribute intimate videos of a woman he had received while they were chatting on a dating app.
In November 2022, 25-year-old Sim Bing Rui was handed a jail term after he
threatened to distribute explicit content of a teenager , after he created a fictitious persona on OkCupid and used it to trick her into engaging in a sex act with him.
In cases of offline misconduct, victims may not have crucial information about their perpetrator, like their full name or NRIC, especially if they are meeting for a first date.
With such information, CMB will be able to assist the police in their investigations.
While some users may find the move excessive and have legitimate privacy concerns, they should keep in mind that the application is asking for four fields of basic information.
CMB does not have access to all information about a person in government records, including address, educational qualification, or income level. This is a good balance struck between ensuring user safety and maintaining privacy.
Of course, the platform must also do its part to ensure data privacy and cyber security to guard against data leaks.
CMB's Ms Tee said the company employs robust cyber security measures and partners with cloud computing service Amazon Web Services to ensure that all information is stored within a secure, encrypted infrastructure.
In an era when deception is easier than ever, holding users accountable is not just helpful – it is essential. For that alone, Singpass verification is a green flag.
10/10, I'd swipe right.