The Verified Blog

As we all know looks are important, especially when it comes to dating. Making a good first impression is important for building relationships. When we meet someone in person, the first impression is quiet easily made, what you see it’s what you get, just use your best judgment and set-up the tone for the subsequent development of the relationship. By the way this isn’t about looking good, not everybody is a supermodel, however first impression is based on look, demeanor, body language, speech, etc. Our intuition utilizes all this and we either click with someone or we don’t. The right blend of gut feeling and common sense are one of the most effective screening mechanisms in dating. So now, how do we take it online?

Well the easiest first step is publishing your photos online. In fact this is away too easy, and thus the flaws in this method: how do we know that a photo really belongs to the person we are interacting with? How do we make sure that a photo wasn’t stolen, or that it wasn’t photoshoped, to shed some years, pounds and wrinkles…

One possible answer is video. As opposed to stills photos, video can’t be doctored as easily (at least not with mainstream inexpensive tools). There are a few great services that use videos in that fashion (incarnation of video tape matchmaking services that were popular in the 1990s). A popular service like this is www.sayheyhey.com, or some people are even using YouTube. Another approach is live video. A great service at is taking off lately is speeddate.com Indeed with the great advantages that online video brings there are some drawbacks: not everyone feels comfortable with video, putting yourself out there in the gallery, or scheduling a fast pace video conferencing can be stressful to many. Here is very entertaining article by Daniel Murphy from Esquire that pinpoints some of the video dating issues.

ID Level provides a solution that combines the best of all worlds: We match submitted photo against video clips that our members submit, and verify that the photos are recent and genuine. However the video clips are not available to the public and never are exposed. There are reviewed only once by an ID Level trusty, and then archived. So with ID Level verified photo you can be sure that what see is what you get, which can save a great deal of emails going back and forth. With confidence and initial good feeling being established at the very beginning, you can move fast to video conference or even better, a real date.

We have created the first practical way to prove somebody who you are without compromising your identity. In this day and age many of the traditional forms of social interaction are being replaced by virtual socializing. Do we really know whom we are socializing with?

When we meet someone in persons we can trust our intuition and gut feeling to help us figure-out this person’s personality and intentions. How do we do the same with some “friendly digital ghost” we met online?

How will you prove to somebody how you really look like? Take a picture of yourself with today’s paper? I don’t think so ?, not to mention your real name and age.

Here is how we offer to solve this complicated issue: prove to ID Level who you are and how you look like, and we will vouch for you to whomever you want. This way your photo or full name will never end-up in someone’s inbox and travel only god knows where.

It’s very much alike a physical ID, once you have it, you are in absolute control on how you use it, to whom you are showing it to . We just added a few modern benefits: 1. we let you to chose the level of information you want show, for example: exact age, range or undisclosed. 2. Invitation to view your credentials can be set for one time view only, and have time limitations, so your ID can’t be reused. 3. If somebody tried to use your ID, we will notify you immediately (as oppose to physical ID, if stolen the only thing left to do is damage control).

People usually are very skeptical about revealing personal details online, so what’s the worst that can happen, if your ID Level account got compromised?

The worst case will be similar to your birthday postcard getting lost in the mail. We cannot compromise information we simply don’t have. We never collect your Social Security Number, driver license number of any type of credit information.

So how by collecting so little information we know that you are the true owner of the identity you claim? The service relays on cross-referencing of various methods. So if you have: 1. Name, age and address that checks out across various public and government databases. 2. Can answer the phone registered under your name.3. Document yourself on camera using a government issued ID and match all the details of the ID, most likely it’s really you.