When Facebook first announced it was creating a dating platform, many privacy experts and users alike expressed skepticism. After all, the platform doesn’t have a great reputation for protecting users’ private info, so why would they trust the company with their love lives? Most troublingly, the company didn’t even have a system to verify the ages of Facebook Dating users — until this week.

According to Facebook, it will now prompt Facebook Dating users to upload a video selfie that is analyzed by AI to determine their approximate age. (Of course, Facebook went out of its way to say that this technology can’t determine your identity.) Users can also choose to upload a form of verification.

“We want to make sure people are placed in experiences that are appropriate for their ages, so we use technology to understand where people have misrepresented how old they are,” Facebook wrote in a blog post announcing the feature. “If we detect someone may be under the age of 18 and trying to use Facebook Dating, we will prompt them to verify their age.”

While this is a welcome development, it’s one that should’ve been rolled out with the Dating platform in the first place. These kinds of tools are always better late than never, but it’s still troubling that it took the company so long.

Recommended Resources

Choose what the experts use: award-winning cybersecurity you can trust and rely on.

Surf the web truly incognito. Try Bitdefender Premium VPN, the ultra-fast VPN that keeps your online identity and activities safe from hackers, ISPs and snoops.

System Mechanic 14 – Make your computer run like new. Winner of 200+ Editor’s Choice awards!