How Does the eHarmony Authenticity Check Work?

It is a short video selfie. eHarmony uses it to confirm that you are a real, live person, to compare you with your photos, and to check that those photos have not been digitally altered. The video is not added to your page and is deleted after the check, although eHarmony keeps two screenshots from it for 30 days.

The check answers three questions, and it helps to know all three before you start.

The first is whether you are a real person, live, in front of the camera at that moment. That is what separates a real member from someone using photos lifted from somebody else's social media.

The second is whether the face in the video matches the face in your photos. If your photos are several years old, or taken from an angle that makes you look like a different man, this is where it shows.

The third is whether your photos have been digitally altered. A smoothing filter, a slimming tool and an app that reshapes your jaw all count as digital alteration, and alteration is one of the things the check looks for.

Plenty of men are uneasy about recording their face for a dating site, so it is worth knowing what eHarmony says it does with the video.

The video is not added to your page, so nobody browsing the site sees it. It is deleted after the check. The one thing eHarmony keeps is a pair of screenshots taken from it, which it holds for 30 days.

If you are still uneasy, think about the alternative. A site with no check at all is a site where anyone can pretend to be anyone, and the women on it would treat every man with that suspicion, including you.

The check itself is simple. When submissions are rejected, eHarmony says it is usually for one of three reasons. The lighting is poor or the video is blurry, the face is not fully visible, or the face does not match the photos.

So set yourself up to avoid all three. eHarmony recommends using a mobile device rather than a laptop or desktop, in good lighting, with your face clearly visible. In practice that means facing a window in daylight, holding the phone at eye level, taking off any cap or sunglasses, and keeping your whole face inside the frame until the video ends.

Give yourself a quiet minute for it, too. A check recorded in a hurry on a dim train platform is far more likely to need a second try than one done at home by a window.

It is easy to see the check as a hurdle eHarmony puts in your way. It is closer to a favor.

Women on dating sites have learned to be wary of fake accounts and of men who look nothing like their photos. A woman who has sat across from one of those men does not forget it, and she brings that caution to every first date after.

Passing the check means your photos are real and unedited. That is exactly what makes a first date go well: the man who walks in is the man she agreed to meet, and nobody spends the first ten minutes adjusting.

The things that get you through the check are the same things that make your photos better. A current photo, in good light, with your whole face visible and nothing edited, is also the photo that makes a woman trust what she is looking at.

If the check makes you realize your photos are out of date, fix that now rather than hoping nobody notices. Swap the oldest ones for photos taken in the last few months. Your date will compare your face with your photos within a minute of meeting you, so the best difference between the two is none at all.

Once you are through, the check has done its job and the rest is up to you.

Write to the suggested partners who interest you. Keep your first note short and specific, built around something on her page. When a conversation has had a few friendly exchanges, suggest meeting for a drink. Keep the chat on the site light, and save the real getting to know each other for the evening itself. The check proves you are real. A plan to meet is what turns that into an evening with her.