How profiles are checked

Verification on a dating site is a claim, so this page tries to be exact rather than reassuring. Where we say "we check", something actually happens; where we do not check something, it says so.

Before a woman's profile is shown

• Review by a person. Every new women's profile is read by a moderator before it appears in the gallery: the photographs, the text, the age, and whether the profile is a duplicate of one we already have. A profile waiting for review is not visible to members, and one that turns out to be false is removed with the account behind it.
• Identity document and a live video — for some profiles, not all. Part of the profiles on the site go through an identity check: a document shown to the moderator and a short video recorded on the spot from a one-time link, so the recording cannot be an old file. A woman who signs up here herself takes a different route: her profile is published only once it carries a photograph, an age and something she has written about herself, and it stays under a moderator who can take it down at any point. So the honest summary is this — do not assume any particular profile has been checked against a document. The video call, further down this page, is the check you can run yourself, and it is the one that tells you most.

After the profile is live

• Reports. Any member can report a profile or a message. A report is read by a person, and a profile under investigation can be hidden while we look.
• Watching for the scam pattern. Requests for money, requests to move to another app in the first messages, and the same text sent to many members are what we look for, in messages that are reported to us and in patterns across the site.
• Removal. A profile that asks a member for money is removed and the account behind it is closed. We would rather lose a profile than a member.

Video verification

The strongest check we run is the one described above as a live video. The woman receives a one-time link, opens it on her phone and records a short clip there and then; the link cannot be reused, and an old file cannot be uploaded in its place. A moderator compares the clip with the photographs on the profile and with the identity document. Where it has been done, it proves that the person in the photographs exists, holds the document and set up the profile herself. It does not prove anything about her intentions — which is why the video call, further down this page, still matters more.

What "verified profiles" means here

We do not put a "verified" badge on profiles, and we do not describe the whole gallery as verified, because the checks are not the same for every profile: video verification is still being rolled out, and the profiles it has not reached yet rest on the moderator's review alone. If a site tells you all of its profiles are verified, ask what the word covers. Here it covers exactly what this page says, and no more.

What is checked about you

Men's accounts are checked more lightly: your email address is confirmed when you register, and you can confirm a mobile phone number for a small credit bonus. We do not ask men for an identity document. Your email address and payment details are never shown on your profile.

What we do not check, and cannot

• We do not verify anyone's intentions. A real person can still change her mind, and so can you.
• We do not run background checks in either direction.
• We cannot verify what happens once a conversation leaves the site. Everything above applies to what we can see; a request for money made on another app is invisible to us until you tell us.

The check that works better than any of ours

Ask for a video call. A call inside the site puts the person in front of you, live, with no chance to substitute a photograph or an old recording. Anyone who is who she says she is will agree to one once you have exchanged a few letters; anyone who keeps finding reasons not to has answered your question. How to make that first call easy is on the video dating page, and the wider warning signs are in the dating safety guide.

If you think a profile is false

Write to support@annabrides.com with the profile and what made you doubt it. You do not need to be sure. We will check and tell you what we found.