How We Verify Your Documents

An identity document goes through three checks before it is treated as evidence of who you are. You do not start any of them yourself: they run in order once the upload finishes, and the status on your profile follows along.

• A safety scan: the file is scanned before anyone or anything else opens it, so a malicious upload never reaches the rest of the checks.
• Reading the document: the details printed on it are read out automatically. You see what was read and can correct it before anything is saved against your profile.
• A cross-check: what was read is compared with what you have already told us. A mismatch does not fail you; it flags the document for a person to look at.

If a check cannot complete, the document waits for a member of our team rather than being rejected automatically.

A document proves the document exists. It does not prove that the person holding it is the person on it. The video identity check is what connects the two, and it is the reason a recording adds something a photograph cannot.

It is a single continuous recording, usually under a minute. On screen you are asked to do a small sequence of things in order: typically blink, hold your document up to the camera, and read a short phrase aloud. The phrase is generated by our server at the moment you start, and is different every time, so a recording made earlier or by somebody else cannot be submitted in its place.

We ask for your agreement immediately before recording, separately from the agreement you gave when you uploaded the document. The two are different things: one is a scan of a document, the other is a recording of your face and voice.

• Processed on our own servers: documents and recordings are handled locally by default, and your data never leaves our servers without your approval. No external provider sees a document or a recording unless you specifically approve enhanced processing of that document.
• Stored privately: a recording is held in private storage, not on a public address, and is not listed anywhere another user can reach.
• Reviewed by a person: a member of our team watches the recording and decides. Nothing about your identity is decided by an automated face match.
• Never used to train anything: your recording is not used to train or improve any model.

Your profile shows the check as in review until a reviewer has watched it. When they approve it, the status settles on your profile and you do not need to record again.

If they cannot confirm it, we email you and say what to redo. Lighting, the document being out of frame, or the phrase not being audible are the usual reasons. You then record a new check. The attempt that was not confirmed stays on your record rather than being erased, so the history of what was reviewed is honest, and it is never re-used as evidence.

A recording is kept for as long as the document it supports is evidence on your account, and is deleted with that document. It is not kept indefinitely on its own.

• Delete a recording, or the document behind it, from your profile at any time. Deleting the document removes the recordings filed against it.
• Closing your account removes both, along with the rest of your vault.
• Withdrawing your agreement to being recorded is the same action as deleting the recording: there is no separate switch, because there is nothing left to withdraw once it is gone.

The Privacy Policy sets out the lawful basis and the retention position in full, and the Terms explain what a video check is and is not evidence of.