How VeriMe Works
Validate Without Friction
In research and scholarship, access to tools, data, and funding often depends on proving who you are and what you’re qualified to do. But verification shouldn’t slow you down.
VeriMe makes the process transparent, privacy-preserving, and under your control.
At its core, VeriMe helps you verify your identity once and re-use everywhere — confirming your identity and credentials across research workflows without the repetitive forms or delays. It’s like having a trusted colleague vouching that your digital presence is attached to who you say you are without having to share your sensitive details with everyone!
How VeriMe Verification Works
VeriMe uses several concepts to ensure you have both transparency about and control over how your data is used.
Evidence Markers
Simple yes/no indicators confirm facts about your VeriMe Account information:
Account security - have you validated your email address? Are you using multi-factor authentication?
Personhood - have you provided a physical ID that has been verified? Have you demonstrated that you are a living person (and not a photo of a person, or an AI bot)?
Uniqueness - has the information that you have provided been attached to exactly one VeriMe account?
For each evidence marker, you, as a VeriMe account holder, may view what evidence you have already provided and has been verified. You can also see what evidence may be missing and how to provide it.
Keeping your evidence private. VeriMe does not expose the specific evidence that you provide. Rather, we convert evidence markers into yes/no statements.
VeriMe bundles related Evidence Markers into higher-level Verifications.
Verification Bundles
Today, VeriMe enables only two possible Verifications: Is this a valid VeriMe account, and has the person controlling the account provided proof of personhood. However, the VeriMe platform is extendable! We welcome your ideas for other Evidence Markers and Verifications that would be useful for research and scholarship.
Each Verification has transparent rules that govern how Evidence Markers are used to produce a Verification value. For example, a verification that a VeriMe account is verified has two values:
isValid - the Verification value if all of the following Evidence Markers have been validated:
Email (security): At least one email address has been provided and validated.
Multifactor Authentication (security): The VeriMe account has been secured using multifactor authentication (MFA).
Linked account (uniqueness): At least one external account has been linked and validated. Since VeriMe is focused on research and scholarship, our recommended linked account is ORCID.
Unavailable - the Verification value if one or more of the needed Evidence Markers are missing OR you have decided to make this validation unavailable to those who seek it.
VeriMe Account Information remains private.
VeriMe does not expose the sensitive evidence that you provide. Rather, we convert evidence markers into yes/no statements and bundle them into Validation values.
Verification provides none of your sensitive evidence used to calculate the Verification value.
VeriMe maintains audit logs of how and when Evidence Markers and Verification values evolve, enabling us to reproduce a Verification value as it was on a specific date and time — giving confidence without exposing private details. We also log every request for Verification values sent to your Account.
Verification Requests
Subscribers may integrate VeriMe services into their products and services to incorporate Verification values into research and scholarship workflows. These integrations make it easy for you to prove you are who you say you are and they empower researchers and organizations alike to cooperate in creating an accountable research environment.
Subscribers may request Validation values that are associated with information that they know, for example, an authenticated ORCID iD or a verified email address or phone number. You are in control of the availability of your Verifications (see below). The Verifications you decide to make available will be available to Subscribers through a system-to-system interface called an API (Application Programming Interface). This is similar to how information is exchanged when you log into your banking app and request your account balance.
Some examples of Verification requests include:
API Request: What is the status of the VeriMe Account with this ORCiD ID?
VeriMe Response: IsValid
API Request: Is the VeriMe account related to this email address held by a person?
VeriMe Response: IsPerson
API Request: What is the birthdate for a person with this name?
VeriMe Response: Unavailable (VeriMe does not provide this type of information)
A Validation request for this VeriMe account with Evidence Markers for email, ORCID iD, and phone number returns an “IsValid” value.
A Validation request for this VeriMe account with Evidence Markers for email, ORCID iD, phone number and proof of identity and personhood returns an “IsPerson” value.
You are in control
You decide what evidence to provide and validate. Once Evidence Markers are able to provide a Validation Value, you also control the visibility of the value to subscribers. And you can change your mind at any time.
In addition to controlling the flow of your information, you also are provided transparent information about who has requested information about you, when, and what VeriMe provided as a response.
You control more than your data!
When you become a Member and user of the VeriMe platform you not only have the peace of mind that privacy and control of your personal data will be in your hands, but you also become part of the governance over the significant decisions that the organization may face - should sharing rules be adjusted, and if so, in what ways? Should this organization be restricted in the way that they use the service? The organization has a surplus this year, what percentage should be reinvested into new VeriMe services?
VeriMe is a trust-enabler, not a gatekeeper — a shared language of trust for the research ecosystem.