The ID check

So that everyone you meet on Sarx is a real person, is who their photos say they are, and is over eighteen. It's the reason you can trust the person across the table at the first date.

The check is run by Stripe, inside the app. You photograph a driver's licence, a passport or a state ID — live, in the app, not from your camera roll — and then take a selfie. Stripe checks that the document is real and that the selfie matches it, and tells Sarx the answer.

The answer, and when you got it. The ID, the selfie and the date of birth on the document stay with Stripe — Sarx never stores them, and they are never shown to anyone you match with.

Separately, the birthday you enter when you sign up is kept on your account, so the app can show your age.

Most failures are the photo, not you. Before you try again:

• Use a document that hasn't expired.
• Lay it flat on a dark surface, in even light, with no glare across it.
• Keep all four corners inside the frame, and hold still until it's captured.
• For the selfie, face the light, and take off a hat or sunglasses.

If it keeps failing, write to us with the type of ID you're using. Don't send us a photo of it — we never need one.

A driver's licence, a passport, or a state ID card. A student ID isn't a government ID, so it can't be used for this — your campus email already proves you're a student.

A check lasts a year. After that the app asks you to do it again, so the badge everyone else relies on stays true.

No. Sarx does not run criminal background checks on anyone. The ID check confirms identity and age; it says nothing about a person's history. That's why the first-date safety advice matters on every first date.