Dating and Singpass: Beyond the swipe

What Coffee Meets Bagel's embrace of government verification reveals about our search for authentic connection.

- Kalpana Vignehsa

A dating app, Coffee Meets Bagel, introduced Singpass verification for its Singapore customers in June after feedback from users identified fake profiles, scams and hidden relationships as their top concerns, with three in four users having encountered these issues.

The one-time verification process allows users' identity card numbers, dates of birth, marital status, and gender to be retrieved from government records, while also effectively informing the state that they're using the dating platform.

Since its roll-out, over 70 per cent of users have opted to be Singpass-verified.

And no wonder, when one considers the trauma of finding out after three months of dating that your match is secretly a married man. Or the creepiness and wasted energy of connecting with a fake persona.

Yet, beyond this significant uptake lies a more complex story about what the users are really seeking in mixing technology and romance.

Two common reactions to Coffee Meets Bagel's Singpass verification protocol are predictably polarised: People either embrace it because they think users will be safer, or they reject it over concerns about privacy and data security.

There is also the concern that the ability to use Singpass for verification on a dating app simply reinforces the belief that the state is best positioned to solve all problems, absolving individuals of the need to take personal or communal responsibility when facing complex social issues.

But a broader issue emerges: Is this verification solution merely treating the symptoms while ignoring the underlying malaise?

The problem extends beyond dating profile fraud—serious as that is—to the fundamental breakdown of trust that has come to define our digital age.