Every listed profile on Parda has been checked by a person. This page explains what that check is, what it proves, and — more importantly — what it does not.
What we check
- A government photo identity document. Passport, driving licence, voter ID or PAN. We do not use Aadhaar, because a private platform cannot require it: the Supreme Court struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2018).
- A live camera selfie. The page opens your camera and captures three frames about a second apart, prompting you to look straight, blink and turn. There is no file upload control on that page at all, so a saved photograph cannot be submitted.
- A handwritten code. You hold up a six-digit code the system generates for you. A stolen photograph cannot show a code issued a minute ago.
How the liveness check works
The three frames are compared using a 32×32 greyscale fingerprint, producing a motion score from 0 to 100. A photograph held up to a camera scores 0. A real person scores well above the threshold. The three frames are stitched into one strip, encrypted and stored, and shown only to the reviewing team.
The score is a filter, not a verdict. What actually verifies anybody is a person comparing the strip against the identity document, and that is what happens.
What the reviewer does
- Confirms the same face appears in the selfie strip, on the document and in the profile photographs.
- Confirms the handwritten code matches the one issued.
- Confirms the face moved between frames.
- Confirms the date of birth on the document, and that the person is 18 or over.
- Checks the document does not appear edited or photographed off a screen.
- Reverse-image-searches the primary profile photograph. If it appears on a stock site or somebody else’s social media, the profile is rejected.
What happens to the documents afterwards
- Encrypted with AES-GCM at rest, under a key held outside the database.
- Served only through an authenticated admin route. Every single view is written to an audit log with who opened it and when.
- Deleted 30 days after a successful review. Rejected or abandoned submissions are deleted after 180 days.
- Only the last four characters of the number and a one-way hash remain afterwards, so we can prevent duplicate accounts without holding the number.
- No other member ever sees any of it, in any circumstance.
What the badge means
It means: a person at Parda looked at a government photo ID and a live selfie and concluded they appear genuine, match each other, and show somebody 18 or over.
It does not mean a background check, a criminal record check, a character reference, a check on marital status, or any assurance about how that person will behave. We cannot verify whether somebody is married, and we do not claim to. Members remain strangers. Read the Safety Centre before meeting anyone.
Why verification is worth doing
Beyond the obvious: members can filter their browse and their inbox to verified profiles only. In practice the badge is the single largest factor in whether messages get replies, because it is the one signal that separates a real person from the standard fake profile.
Browsing without verifying
You can create an account, browse and read without verifying. Verification is required to list a profile that other members can find. This is deliberate: the risk sits with the person being contacted, so the check sits with the person being listed.
If you are rejected
You will be told which of the checks failed, and you can resubmit. If you believe the decision was wrong, the grievance process gets you a review by somebody who was not involved in the original decision.
Privacy of the process itself
The verification team sees your legal name because the check requires it. It is not written to your profile, not shown to any member, and not used anywhere else in the product. See the Privacy Policy and the data table in Law Enforcement Requests.