Does Plenty of Fish Require Face Verification?

Yes, where it has rolled out. POF's Face Check FAQ says Plenty of Fish requires users to complete a biometric Face Check scan with a video selfie. POF is rolling it out in phases, where local regulations permit, on iOS, Android and POF.com. The badge it earns can help your matches and messages. You may also be required to do it if you change your location to a region where it is required.

Face Check is a short video selfie. POF says it exists to help make Plenty of Fish a more authentic place.

The scan does four jobs, according to the FAQ. It estimates your age, checks your photos, reduces fraud, and helps make sure no other account is using your likeness. For a man, the useful way to read that is simple: the check is aimed at fake accounts, and it protects you as much as it screens you.

POF describes it as a check every user completes where it applies, not as a feature you pay for.

After you finish the video selfie, you upload a clear photo of your face on its own, one that matches the video. When both steps are done, you automatically get a Photo Verified badge.

The photo matters. A group shot, sunglasses or a picture taken in the dark gives the check little to work with. Use a recent one where your face fills the frame and nobody else is in it.

POF says it is rolling Face Check out in phases, and only where local regulations permit. That is why one man is asked for it the day he signs up and another has never seen it.

There is one way to run into it unexpectedly. If you change your profile location to a region where Face Check is required, you may be required to complete it then. A man who moves cities, or who sets his account to a place he is about to visit, can find the scan waiting for him.

POF has a second feature with a similar name, and men mix the two up.

Selfie Verification works like this. You open Profile, tap the Safety Toolbox, tap Get Verified, then center your face in the oval and follow the cues on screen. The Face Check described above is the one POF calls a requirement. Get Verified is the selfie you can do yourself from the Safety Toolbox.

If you already have the badge from Get Verified, you do not need to treat the two as competing. They are two routes into the same idea: proving the man in the photo is the man holding the phone. A separate article walks through Get Verified step by step.

Changing or deleting your main photo removes the verified badge, and you must verify again after changing it.

That has a practical consequence. Choose your main photo first, then verify. Men who like to test lead photos should know that every swap costs them the badge until they repeat the check. Do the testing before you verify, and settle on the photo that gets the most likes.

Most failures of a check like this are boring ones. Put your face in the middle of the oval, as POF's steps say, and follow the on-screen cues. Do it in daylight or a well-lit room, take off sunglasses and any hat, and hold the phone steady at eye level.

For the solo photo, choose a recent one taken by itself, with your whole face visible. A picture from years ago, or one where you are half out of the frame, is the kind that creates trouble when it is compared with a fresh video.

Women who date online worry about fake accounts, and they worry more than men do, because meeting a stranger carries more risk for them. A badge answers that worry before she has to ask.

That gives a verified man a small edge at the moment that matters, when she decides whether to like him back or answer his first message. It cannot rescue a weak set of pictures. It does mean that when she is choosing between two men who look about equally good, the one she does not have to wonder about wins.

So treat the requirement as an advantage you were handed. Complete it and keep your main photo clear and recent. Spend the effort you save on the part nobody can verify for you, which is a first message that picks one real detail from her page and asks a question she can answer in a line.