What the badges mean
A seal on an Amana profile means something specific was checked by someone other than the person claiming it. This page explains exactly what each one covers, what it deliberately does not, and what happens when one runs out.
What a badge is, and what it is not
A verification badge is a record that a specific document or dataset was checked. It is not a character reference, a religious endorsement, or a judgement about whether someone will be a good spouse. Amana does not meet members, does not interview them, and does not vouch for anyone.
Please read badges as what they are — a floor, not a guarantee. The practical safety guidance still applies to every conversation, verified or not.
The four checks a member can complete
Government ID
You photograph a government-issued identity document — a passport, driving licence or national identity card — and take a short live selfie. An independent identity-verification provider checks the document is genuine and that the face in the selfie is the face on the document.
This is the check the rest of Amana leans on. It is what ties a real, checkable person to the name on the profile, and it is the one that unlocks free access for female members and makes a guardian-created profile discoverable.
Expiry: none. Once your government ID check is verified it stays verified. It does not lapse and you never have to redo it. The only thing that removes it is a deliberate decision by our trust and safety team — for instance, if a document is later found to be fraudulent.
The UK residency question is asked as part of this same check. See below.
DBS Basic Disclosure
A Basic Disclosure from the Disclosure and Barring Service lists any unspent criminal convictions and conditional cautions held on the Police National Computer. Amana submits your details to an approved provider, who obtains the certificate.
It is genuinely worth understanding the limits here. A Basic Disclosure covers unspent convictions only — spent convictions, cautions that have lapsed, and anything that never resulted in a conviction do not appear on it. It is not the enhanced check used for people working with children or vulnerable adults, and it says nothing about behaviour that was never reported or charged.
Expiry: three years. A DBS Basic Disclosure is a snapshot of a single day. Three years after it is issued, your badge lapses automatically. It is not hidden or deleted — it is shown as lapsed, to you and to everyone who can see your profile, and you are notified along with your current matches. You can renew it at any time.
UK degree
If you have listed a UK degree, it can be checked against the awarding institution's own records — the qualification, the institution and the year — through the service UK universities use for exactly this purpose.
This only covers degrees awarded by UK institutions. A qualification from outside the UK cannot currently be verified through Amana, and its absence should not be read as anything at all.
Expiry: none. A degree that was awarded stays awarded. This badge never lapses.
Marital status
You declare whether you are single, divorced, widowed or currently married. If you declare divorced or widowed, you can upload supporting evidence — a decree absolute, a death certificate, or equivalent documentation.
This one is reviewed by a person, and it does not resolve automatically. There is no register anyone can query to confirm a divorce or bereavement, so a member of the Amana team reads the document and makes a decision. That is slower than the automated checks by design, not by oversight.
Marital status documents are held to the strictest access rule on the platform: only you and Amana staff reviewing them can ever retrieve one. Other members never see the document itself, only the outcome.
Community verification
Separately from the four checks above, a participating mosque can confirm through its own Amana portal that it knows a member. This badge is granted only by a mosque, only for members who have chosen to associate their profile with that mosque and made themselves visible to it, and it can be withdrawn by that mosque at any time.
Community verification reflects community familiarity, not identity or character verification. It means a mosque recognises this person as part of its community. It is not an identity check, a background check, or an endorsement of anyone's conduct — and we show that sentence next to the badge everywhere it appears, so it cannot be mistaken for something stronger.
If a member removes their association with that mosque, the badge is withdrawn automatically. It never outlives the relationship that justified it.
The UK residency question
When you submit your government ID, you are also asked about your right to reside in the UK. Amana is built for people seeking marriage in the UK, and this question exists so members know who they are talking to.
| What you tell us | What happens |
|---|---|
| You are a British national | Recorded as meeting the criterion immediately. No further evidence is requested. |
| You hold Indefinite Leave to Remain | You may supply supporting detail, and it goes to a member of our team for manual review. |
| Neither of the above | Recorded as not meeting the criterion. |
This does not close your account or block you from using Amana. It is recorded for transparency, not used as a gate. We are stating that plainly because it would be easy to assume otherwise. More on how this fits with the rest of our trust and safety policy.
The five states a badge can be in
No badge shown. Nothing is implied by its absence.
Submitted and with the provider or a reviewer. Visible only to you.
The gold seal. Visible on your profile everywhere it appears.
Was verified, and has since expired. Shown greyed with "(expired)" — never quietly hidden.
The check did not pass, or was withdrawn. No badge is shown to other members.
Only the government ID and DBS checks are currently the sort of thing that can lapse, and in practice only the DBS one does — three years after issue. Government ID and UK degree badges do not expire.
Expiry, lapse and renewal
When a badge lapses, three things happen at once and none of them are silent:
- The badge changes to its lapsed state on your profile — visible, not removed. Anyone looking at you sees that you were verified and that the check is now out of date.
- You are notified in the app.
- Everyone you are currently matched with is notified too, because they made a decision partly on the strength of that badge and are entitled to know it has expired.
Renewing runs exactly the same check again, from scratch. Before you commit to anything, you are shown a quote — and the provider's fee and the payment processing fee are always shown as separate lines, never rolled together into one number. You should always be able to see what the check itself costs.
Where badges appear
Your verified badges appear on your card in Discover, on search results, on your shortlist entries, in your conversation list, at the top of your conversations, and on the interest list of anyone you have expressed interest in. They appear identically in every one of those places — one seal, not a family of different icons.
The seal is always shown with a written label beside it. Nobody has to be able to distinguish gold from grey to know whether a check has been done.
What we do with what you submit
Identity documents, DBS results and marital-status evidence are among the most sensitive things Amana ever handles, and are treated accordingly — retrieved only through an authenticated request, never sitting on a public address, and covered in detail in the Privacy Policy. Other members only ever see the outcome of a check, never the document behind it.