How ID verification on cruush works
Written by Julien Lenaz, lead developer of cruush.
A lot of you have asked what happens to your ID if you verify on cruush. Fair question. Handing a photo of your passport to a hookup app should make you nervous. Here is exactly how it works, what we keep and what we throw away. Verification is not open in the app yet; this is how it works when it opens.
It is optional and free
Verifying is your choice and it costs nothing. If you verify, you get the verified badge on your profile. That badge is the only thing other members ever see. They never see your ID, your selfie, your real name or your date of birth.
We run it ourselves
There is no outside verification company. The verifier runs on our own server, separate from the rest of cruush, on its own private network that only the cruush app can reach. Your ID photos never go to a third party and are never used to train AI.
What happens when you verify
You take a photo of your ID and a short live selfie in the app. Your phone encrypts both before they leave it. They go straight to the verifier and never touch your profile photos or the rest of the app.
The verifier checks that the ID reads correctly, that it belongs to you and that you are a real person in front of the camera, not a photo or a video. If it cannot decide, a person looks, and only a small, named group of staff can do that, each time with a fresh two-factor login that expires in minutes. Every look is recorded.
What we keep
When the check is done, we keep one thing: a note that your account is verified. We do not keep your date of birth, your face or a copy of your ID on your account.
The photos themselves are locked with keys that are destroyed once a decision is made, and the files are deleted after that. If you delete your account, the verifier is told to delete anything it still holds about you. The verifier is kept out of our backups, so a deleted ID stays deleted.
What I want you to know
This is not end-to-end encryption. To check your ID, our verifier has to open it for a moment, and a reviewer can see it on screen if a person needs to look. Everything else about it is built so that as little as possible is kept, for as short a time as possible, by as few people as possible.
What happens in cruush, stays on cruush. If you have questions, email julien@cruush.app.