User Profile Verification via Video Action and Moderator

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Solution Overview

Problem

Current systems for verifying user-supplied information on websites, such as descriptions and photographs, lack effectiveness in ensuring accuracy and authenticity, leading to potential misrepresentation and trust issues among users.

Innovation Solution

A method and system that allows users to verify characteristics and photographs by requesting users to perform specific actions in front of a camera, recording video or images, and having a moderator, either human or computer, confirm the authenticity of the user's appearance and characteristics, with verification symbols displayed next to verified items to enhance trust among users.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Ease of operation

If user-supplied information is accepted without verification, then ease of operation is improved, but reliability deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveease of operationVSAvoidreliability
Core Design Contradiction:
Ease of operationVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs verification actions before the information is displayed to other users. The user completes verification tasks (posing for photos, recording video) in advance, and the verification status is stored and later displayed as a trust indicator, eliminating the need for verification at the moment of information display.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

A moderator (human or automated system) acts as an intermediary between the user-supplied information and other users. The moderator verifies the authenticity of photographs and characteristics by comparing them with video or image evidence, providing a trusted third-party validation that resolves the conflict between ease of use and reliability.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Reliability

If verification processes are implemented, then reliability is improved, but device complexity worsens

Engineering Contradiction:
ImprovereliabilityVSAvoiddevice complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

Users perform verification tasks using their own devices and resources. They record video or take photos themselves using their smartphone camera, eliminating the need for specialized verification equipment on the platform's side. The system provides instructions and processes the user-generated content, but the heavy lifting is done by the user's own device.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

Solution Approach 2:

The system creates visual copies (photographs and video frames) that can be compared and verified. Instead of requiring complex real-time analysis, the system captures static or semi-static visual representations that can be stored, compared, and verified against user-supplied photographs, simplifying the verification mechanism.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #26Copying

3Measurement precision

If comprehensive verification is performed, then measurement precision is improved, but loss of time worsens

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvemeasurement precisionVSAvoidloss of time
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system implements a tiered verification approach where essential characteristics are verified with high precision through detailed visual comparison, while less critical attributes receive proportionally less verification effort. The moderator focuses verification on key identifying features rather than attempting to verify every aspect of user profiles, achieving sufficient precision without excessive time investment.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #16Partial or excessive action

Data Source

PatentEP3111354B1System and method for verifying user supplied items asserted about the user
Publication Date: 2020.03.11 ZOOSK INC
  • EP3111354B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP3111354B1 patent drawingFigure 2A
  • EP3111354B1 patent drawingFigure 2B~3

AI summary

A system and method validates user supplied photographs and/or characteristics using a video, audio or series of images of the user responding to instructions.