StayKnown Verification Policy for verified identity, organization trust, and badge misuse prevention.

1) Summary

StayKnown verification is a trust and recognition feature inside a safety-first product. It helps users recognize verified individuals and verified organizations, but it does not remove the need for consent, safety judgment, lawful use, contact approval, emergency caution, and abuse reporting.

2) What StayKnown verification means

A verified badge means StayKnown has reviewed certain account identity, organization, or trust information enough to display a verification marker inside the product. The review may consider profile information, account history, organization evidence, contact information, public signals, documentation, and safety risk.

• Verification helps users recognize an account in StayKnown surfaces.
• Verification may be active, pending, limited, paused, removed, or under review.
• Verification may apply to individuals or organizations depending on the approved badge type.
• Verification is not a promise that every future action, message, alert, emergency claim, or request from the account is safe.
• StayKnown may update, pause, or remove verification when risk, abuse, identity change, or inaccurate information appears.

3) Badge types and badge states

A Verified Individual badge is for a real-person account that has passed StayKnown’s individual verification review. It may appear beside a person’s name or profile identity where the app supports verification display.

• Used for a person, not a business, office, school, charity, government agency, or group.
• May require identity, profile, email, phone, account, safety, or public-presence review.
• Must not be used to impersonate another person or imply authority the person does not have.
• Can be removed if the account changes identity, misleads people, or violates StayKnown rules.

A Verified Organization badge is for an organization, company, office, nonprofit, school, support body, safety group, or entity-style account that passes StayKnown’s organization review.

• Used for organization-style accounts, not personal identity accounts.
• May require evidence of organization name, domain, public identity, operating presence, authorized contact, or role.
• Does not automatically mean the organization has government, medical, law enforcement, school, security, nonprofit, charity, emergency, or regulatory authority.
• May be removed if ownership, identity, purpose, public representation, or authority claims become misleading.

If StayKnown displays a grey or softer review tick, it must not be treated as full verification. A grey tick may indicate pending review, limited review, incomplete review, temporary review, or a status that needs explanation.

• Grey does not equal fully verified.
• Users must not present a grey tick as proof of active verification approval.
• StayKnown may remove or change grey review indicators at any time.
• Full verified status should be shown only when the account has active verification approval.

4) Eligibility for verification

Verification is discretionary. StayKnown may approve, reject, pause, limit, or remove verification based on account evidence, safety risk, abuse history, identity clarity, region, policy compliance, legal risk, and operational capacity.

• The account should represent a real individual or legitimate organization.
• The account name, profile information, contact details, and public-facing identity should be accurate and consistent.
• The account should not be created for impersonation, scams, fake authority, harassment, stalking, false emergencies, or manipulation.
• The account should not use misleading names, logos, profile photos, organization labels, or public claims.
• The account should not be restricted, banned, repeatedly reported, or under unresolved safety review.
• StayKnown may require additional review for organizations, high-risk names, public-facing accounts, minors, guardians, schools, nonprofits, safety bodies, or authority-like accounts.

5) Verification review process

StayKnown may request or review information to determine whether an account should receive or keep a badge. The process may vary depending on account type, region, risk, evidence, and available review tools.

• StayKnown may review account profile details, name, username, email, phone, organization information, and public identity signals.
• StayKnown may ask for proof of identity, proof of organization, proof of authority to represent an organization, or additional clarification.
• StayKnown may compare submitted information with app activity, public sources, support history, safety reports, and fraud signals.
• StayKnown may reject verification if information is incomplete, inconsistent, unverifiable, unsafe, misleading, or high-risk.
• StayKnown may approve verification for one account type but not another.
• StayKnown is not required to disclose every review signal, anti-abuse method, or internal risk rule.

6) Where verification may appear

Verification badges may appear beside names, profile details, or identity surfaces where recognition can reduce confusion and improve trust context. Display may vary by app version, platform, feature, plan, region, and safety state.

• Profile surfaces and public-facing identity areas.
• Stories, story viewers, story likers, and profile trust surfaces.
• Chat headers, chat lists, message identity context, and approved-contact chat surfaces.
• Contact approval flows, contact requests, emergency contact context, and responder context where linked to a real StayKnown user account.
• Visit alerts, LIVE updates, location safety notifications, and safety timeline events.
• SOS alerts, SOS stopped notices, VPN/location interruption notices, and responder context.
• Daily I’M SAFE emails, missed I’M SAFE alerts, push notification metadata, in-app notifications, and safety emails.
• Website Learn pages, support references, or policy explanations where relevant.

Manually typed responder names, manually entered contacts, or external offices should not receive a verified badge merely because the name matches a verified user. A badge should appear only when the record is clearly linked to a real StayKnown user or approved verified account.

7) What verification does not mean

Verification has limits. Users and contacts must not treat a badge as a guarantee, emergency certification, official endorsement, or permission to ignore safety signals.

• Verification does not mean StayKnown guarantees the person or organization is safe.
• Verification does not mean StayKnown endorses every action, message, request, alert, SOS, Visit, story, or claim from the account.
• Verification does not confirm professional licensing unless StayKnown separately states that a specific credential was reviewed.
• Verification does not automatically confirm government, police, medical, school, NGO, charity, security, rescue, or emergency authority.
• Verification does not let users bypass contact approval, blocked-add settings, privacy settings, child-safety rules, or consent requirements.
• Verification does not permit hidden tracking, stalking, harassment, coercion, false emergencies, fraud, or unlawful monitoring.
• Verification does not replace official emergency services, legal advice, medical advice, identity documents, workplace checks, school checks, or background checks.

8) How to keep verification active

Verified users and organizations must maintain accurate identity information and safe behavior. Verification can be reviewed at any time, especially after account changes, reports, abuse signals, ownership changes, or public identity disputes.

• Keep your real name, organization name, profile details, username, email, phone, and public identity signals accurate.
• Do not change the verified account into a different person, business, office, organization, or purpose after approval.
• Do not sell, rent, transfer, share, or hand over control of a verified account.
• Keep profile photos, organization marks, websites, public descriptions, and contact details consistent with the approved verification.
• Respond to reasonable StayKnown re-checks, identity clarification requests, or safety review requests.
• Follow the Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Safety & Anti-Stalking Policy, Contact Consent rules, Acceptable Use rules, Minor Use rules, and this Verification Policy.
• Avoid using verification to pressure contacts, manipulate emergencies, demand trust, request money, collect private information, or imply authority you do not have.
• Secure the verified account with strong access controls and report suspected takeover quickly.

9) What can cause badge removal, pause, or review

StayKnown may remove, pause, restrict, downgrade, or review a badge when the verification becomes inaccurate, unsafe, misleading, disputed, unverifiable, or abusive.

• The account impersonates another person, organization, office, school, nonprofit, emergency body, or authority.
• The account changes identity after verification approval.
• The badge is used to mislead users, contacts, donors, clients, responders, guardians, minors, or the public.
• The account claims government, law enforcement, medical, emergency, school, company, security, charity, or nonprofit authority without adequate proof.
• The account uses StayKnown for stalking, harassment, coercion, false emergencies, fake SOS alerts, fraud, scams, unsafe contact pressure, unlawful monitoring, or abuse.
• Verification information becomes outdated, false, incomplete, unverifiable, or disputed.
• The account is sold, transferred, rented, shared, hacked, or controlled by someone other than the verified owner or authorized organization representative.
• The account violates safety rules, child-safety rules, privacy rules, acceptable-use rules, payment rules, app-store rules, or applicable law.
• StayKnown receives credible reports, legal concerns, identity disputes, safety signals, or abuse indicators requiring review.

10) Effects of verification abuse

Abuse of verification is serious because StayKnown is a safety product. Misusing a badge can harm users, contacts, minors, responders, organizations, and emergency trust.

• Badge removal or badge pause.
• Loss of verified visibility in chat, stories, profile, contacts, Visit, SOS, emails, and notifications.
• Contact restrictions, responder restrictions, blocked-add restrictions, or contact approval review.
• Chat, story, profile, media, SOS, Visit, manual capture, or I’M SAFE feature restrictions.
• Account review, temporary suspension, permanent ban, or device/network/payment restrictions.
• Removal or restriction of misleading profile content, stories, media, organization labels, or badge claims.
• Preservation of records where appropriate for investigation, legal process, emergency review, fraud review, or abuse enforcement.
• Cooperation with valid legal requests or emergency disclosure review where required or permitted by law.

11) Organization-specific rules

Verified organizations carry additional risk because users may interpret organization identity as authority. Verified organizations must present their role clearly and must not overstate power, licensing, emergency status, nonprofit status, school authority, or government connection.

• Use the organization badge only for the approved organization identity.
• Do not rename the account into a different organization after approval without review.
• Do not claim legal authority, government authority, law enforcement authority, medical authority, school authority, security authority, emergency response authority, charity status, or nonprofit status without proof.
• Do not use organization verification to pressure users into sharing location, joining contacts, accepting responder roles, sending money, or disclosing private information.
• Do not imply StayKnown partnership, endorsement, certification, employment, official approval, or agency status unless StayKnown has expressly authorized that claim in writing.
• Keep organization contact routes, public profile, website, representative authority, and account control accurate.
• Immediately report unauthorized control, employee misuse, account takeover, domain loss, organization closure, ownership change, or identity dispute.

12) Minors, guardians, schools, and vulnerable users

Verification must not be used to exploit or pressure minors, guardians, students, dependents, employees, or vulnerable users. Accounts involving minors, schools, youth programs, guardians, or vulnerable users may receive heightened review.

• Verification does not let an adult bypass minor-safety rules, guardian consent requirements, or child-protection safeguards.
• A verified adult, organization, school, nonprofit, or youth program must not use verification to pressure minors or guardians into unsafe contact, location sharing, chat, or SOS roles.
• A verified organization working with minors should use clear notice, appropriate consent, role clarity, and lawful data practices.
• StayKnown may restrict, remove, or review verification for reports involving minors, grooming, exploitation, coercion, impersonation, stalking, or child-safety concerns.
• Under-13 account creation remains prohibited under StayKnown’s minor-use posture.
• Where parental or guardian consent is required, verification does not replace that consent.

13) Verification data, retention, and privacy

Verification may require collecting or reviewing data connected to account identity, contact information, organization identity, public representation, and safety risk. StayKnown should handle verification information according to its Privacy Policy, Data Retention Policy, legal obligations, and safety needs.

• Verification data may include profile information, names, usernames, emails, phone numbers, organization information, public links, documentation, support history, and review notes.
• StayKnown may keep verification records for safety, fraud prevention, abuse investigation, audit, legal, operational, or enforcement reasons.
• StayKnown may limit access to verification records to authorized review, support, safety, legal, or security personnel.
• StayKnown may preserve verification-related records when badge misuse, impersonation, fraud, safety risk, legal process, account takeover, or dispute is suspected.
• Users may request privacy rights through the appropriate StayKnown privacy route, subject to legal, safety, fraud-prevention, and record-preservation limits.

14) Reporting badge misuse

Users, contacts, organizations, guardians, responders, and recipients should report badge misuse when verification appears misleading, unsafe, false, or abusive.

• Someone pretends to be verified or displays a fake verification claim.
• Someone uses a verified badge to pressure, threaten, manipulate, shame, or deceive.
• A verified organization claims authority it does not have.
• A verified user uses StayKnown for stalking, harassment, coercion, false emergencies, fake SOS, fraud, or unsafe contact behavior.
• A badge appears beside the wrong name, person, organization, responder, or manually typed contact.
• A verified account appears hacked, sold, transferred, rented, shared, or controlled by someone else.
• A verified user or organization asks for money, credentials, private data, location, or emergency trust in a suspicious way.

Reports should include usernames, emails, names, profile links, screenshots, dates, times, alert examples, contact requests, chat messages, story references, SOS/Visit context, or any detail that helps review the issue safely.

15) Appeals and re-review

If verification is rejected, paused, removed, or limited, the user or organization may request review where available. StayKnown may require additional information before restoring or approving verification.

• A review request should explain why the verification decision may be wrong.
• The requester should provide accurate identity, organization, ownership, role, or authority information where needed.
• StayKnown may deny review where risk remains, information is insufficient, the account is unsafe, or the account violates policy.
• StayKnown may restore verification, keep it removed, downgrade a badge, change badge type, request corrections, or keep the account under review.
• Repeated abusive, false, or manipulative appeal attempts may lead to further restrictions.

16) Legal cooperation, emergencies, and safety review

Verification records and badge misuse reports may be relevant to safety, fraud, impersonation, emergency, child-safety, or legal matters. StayKnown may preserve, review, or disclose information when required or permitted by law and consistent with its legal and safety policies.

• StayKnown may preserve verification records where badge misuse, impersonation, fraud, abuse, emergency risk, or legal concern is suspected.
• StayKnown may cooperate with valid legal process.
• StayKnown may review emergency disclosure requests where there is credible risk of serious harm.
• StayKnown may reject, narrow, or challenge legal or emergency requests that are overbroad, unclear, unlawful, unsafe, or connected to misuse.
• StayKnown does not support covert surveillance, unlawful monitoring, fake authority, or abusive verification claims.

17) Contact and related policies

For verification questions, badge misuse, impersonation, organization disputes, safety issues, privacy concerns, or legal concerns, use the appropriate StayKnown route.

• Support: support@stay-known.com
• Use the subject line: StayKnown Verification Report.
• Report immediate danger to official emergency services first.
• Use Abuse Reporting for badge misuse, impersonation, harassment, false emergencies, unsafe contact behavior, or coercive use.
• Use Law Enforcement & Emergency Requests for valid official requests, preservation, or urgent legal concerns.