SwingHub has announced a new partnership which will prevent convicted sex offenders from joining the app. The platform, a social media app for members of the swinger lifestyle, will use newly-developed facial recognition technology to create a safer community space.
SwingHub’s CEO Gage Masterson announced and explained the new safety initiative in a recent Instagram live discussion, which you can view by clicking here or in the tweet below:
We have partnered with https://t.co/7bDCVFHB71 and now are able to stop people who have s*xual offences against them getting on our app. Want to know more? Watch the full video here: https://t.co/IbjWo4SYcE pic.twitter.com/8GrXb0kzuK
— swinghub (@SwingHub) April 15, 2024
He explained that SwingHub has partnered with offenders.org.uk, a UK open-source and community-run sex offenders database that collects information from news articles and police reports.
SwingHub is now able to cross-reference facial recognition scans completed by new signups with the offender database. If a match is found, the social platform will verify that it is the offender in question, prohibit them from joining, and then inform the authorities.
Masterson and SwingHub’s tech lead highlight that the majority of convicted sex offenders are prohibited from joining social / dating apps as part of their criminal punishment agreement.
Upon agreeing this partnership and developing the technology to make the safety feature a reality, SwingHub cross-referenced its existing users with the offender database, finding one match. They have since taken action against that user.
“I feel so strong when I say this, that there is no room for sexual offenders on any platform, if that’s dating or in the lifestyle, and especially at Swinghub”, Masterson said during the Instagram Live.
The SwingHub CEO proudly stated that it is “the first lifestyle social media platform to introduce this”, and highlighted a number of shocking statistics about the number of sexual assaults that take place in the UK.
Masterson invited other social and dating app developers to get in touch if they would like to harness this new technology. “We don’t want to be the only ones to do this, we want every other platform to be the same because safety is so important to us”, he said.
Future safety measures
Looking ahead, SwingHub’s tech lead announced that as the 2.0 version of the SwingHub app is released, more verification tools will be available to further improve user safety.
The SwingHub team are also looking to develop separate apps that harness this technology, for example an app where users can upload a photo of someone they’re going to meet to check if they’re a sex offender.
Beyond just protecting virtual spaces, Masterson said he is also working on the ‘Sentinel Project’, a database for all swing clubs across the UK, where they can cross-reference new members with the sex offender database.
Find out more about SwingHub by visiting its website here.
