Dating & Background Checks in China
Shimrit sends in this Shanghai Daily story, “Matchmaking site works to cut down deception:”
A LEADING Chinese matchmaking Website is to check the age, marital status and other personal details of prospective cyber daters against an official database to prevent deception.
Beginning today, Baihe.com will screen its eight million online daters against an ID authentication system it jointly developed with the Ministry of Public Security, said Jason Tian, CEO of the online service that uses extensive personality profiles to match couples.
“In the long run, we’ll arrange dates only for those who are proven to be telling the truth,” he said.
See, that’s pressure. Not getting a passport is one thing, not getting a date? Different place in Maslow’s hierarchy, as Alessandro Acquisti and Ralph Gross pointed out in a paper on the social pressure to join Facebook and Myspace.
We’ll get off the dating kick shortly. I found the extension of the official identity database to be interesting and scary.