Voter verification

Every vote in a test election has to come from a different person. Verification is how that is proved: one short face scan, taken in your browser, with no identity document and nothing to install.

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How it works

The scan answers two questions. The first is whether a real person is in front of the camera at that moment, rather than a photo or a video of one. The second is whether that person has registered before. Your scan is compared with the faces of citizens who are already verified, and matching none of them means this is your first account. Clear both and the account can vote in test elections and register a party. That is all verification is for — browsing parties, reading results, and using your wallet never require it. You do this once. Verification belongs to the account rather than to an election: nothing asks you to repeat it before a vote, and each verified account casts one vote in each election. Verification lasts while you keep using World Republic. If you do not use it for three years, your face data is destroyed and your verification is removed with it. You can also delete your face data yourself at any time, in Account → Verification, without deleting your account; that removes your verification until you complete a new scan. You can verify again with a new scan whenever you come back. The Biometric Retention and Destruction Policy sets out that schedule, and what counts as using World Republic.

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When two faces match

If your scan matches a face that is already verified, the account is not approved. The comparison decides that at the moment of the scan, on how closely the two faces match and nothing else about you. No person takes part, and there is nothing to wait for. People can look alike, so the comparison can be wrong. If you think it is, ask in our help community: a person will look at both records and can reopen verification.

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What is stored

The check never asks for your name or for a document. What it needs is your face.

• A still image from your scan is kept, along with a mathematical summary of your face used only for comparison against other citizens.
• Both are held in the European Union (Ireland).
• Nothing is captured until you agree. The check opens with a consent box you have to tick, and you can decline — though you cannot vote without verifying.
• Deleting your account deletes that image and removes your face from the comparison. It closes the account itself at the same time, and any WDD left in it is forfeited. One exception: if you voted in an election that closes within the next fourteen days, the image and the comparison entry are kept until that election closes and deleted then. An election closing further away than that does not hold the destruction at all — the face check is what stops the same person from verifying a new account and voting again in it.

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Next steps