What a verified badge actually means

Before a profile is published, the person advertising has to provide a government identity document and record a short live video. The video is checked against the document and against the photos on the profile.

The video has to be recorded at the time. A previously saved clip will not pass, which is what stops someone using footage of another person.

It proves the person in the photos is a real adult who holds the document they provided, and that they were physically present when the profile was set up. In practice this means the photos are of them, and they are over eighteen.

It also means a duplicate is hard to run. New profiles are compared against existing ones by face, so the same person cannot quietly hold several listings, and photos taken from someone else's profile will be caught.

Verification is an identity check and nothing more. It is not a reference, a background check, or a promise about how any particular meeting will go.

It does not confirm that prices are current, that availability is accurate, or that photos are recent. Someone can be exactly who they say they are and still be someone you would rather not spend an evening with. Keep reading the profile and keep asking questions.

Report it. Use the report link on the profile, and tell us what did not match.

This is the single most useful thing you can tell us, because it is the one thing our checks are designed to catch. A profile where the photos have been changed after approval is exactly the case we want flagged.