Why we make everybody prove they are real

The short version

We give you a random pose. You take a live selfie doing it. A person compares it to your profile photos. Then we delete the selfie. That is the whole thing, and it takes under a minute.

We do run an automatic check first, but only on the picture itself — is it sharp enough, is it bright enough, is it plausibly a photo taken just now. It can reject something unusable immediately. It cannot approve anyone. Software that guesses whether two faces match is exactly the thing that lets fake profiles through when it is wrong, so we do not let it make that decision.

Why a random pose?

Because anyone can download someone else’s photo. What they cannot do is produce a brand-new photo of that person holding up two fingers with their left hand on their head, generated the moment you asked for it. Randomising the challenge is what turns “upload a selfie” into actual proof.

Who sees my verification selfie?

No other member. Ever. It is stored in a separate area that the app’s security rules make unreadable to every normal account, including yours once submitted. Only a moderator reviewing your case can open it, and only until a decision is made.

Once you are approved, the selfie is deleted. We keep the verdict, the date, and a one-way fingerprint of the image used to catch people re-using the same photo across multiple fake accounts. We do not keep the photo itself.

What happens to my profile photos?

Those are the ones other members see, so they stick around until you delete them. Two things happen automatically when you upload:

• We strip the hidden data. Photos from a phone often carry the exact GPS coordinates of where they were taken. That is a genuine danger in an app like this, so we remove all of it before the file is ever stored.
• We make small versions. Browsing loads compressed thumbnails, not full-size originals — faster on mobile data, and cheaper for us, which is part of how this stays free.

Private albums

You can keep photos in a private album that nobody sees by default. You grant access to one person at a time, and you can take that access away again. The same rule applies as everywhere else: what someone shares with you is not yours to pass on.

What if I fail, or I am not comfortable doing it?

Every submission is looked at by a person — usually the same day. If they cannot make it out, they will ask you to try again with better light or a clearer pose. Nobody is banned for a failed attempt.

If you are not willing to take a live selfie at all, then honestly, this app will not work for you, and we would rather say that plainly now than after you have filled in a whole profile. It is the one thing we will not bend on, because the moment we do, this place becomes every other app.

Will I have to do it again?

Sometimes. If you change your main profile photo, if enough people report your account, or occasionally as a random spot-check. It is the same quick process.

Deleting everything

You can delete your account at any time from your settings. That removes your profile, your photos, your messages and your login — properly, from every system, not just hidden from view.