This guide is for individuals going through a Persona-powered identity verification flow. While we’ve included helpful tips, the verification was set up by the business, service, or organization that asked you to verify. They use Persona as a tool, and they ultimately decide what’s required and can assist with your specific situation, if you’re having trouble.
Start here
Verification screens use short wording, and short wording is easy to read as bad news. Most of what appears on screen is one of four things, and only one of them is a problem:
- A normal step, which is just the verification flow moving along.
- A tip, shown while the camera is open, telling you how to move so the picture comes out usable. Nothing has gone wrong.
- A retry, asking you to have another go at a step. Nothing has been decided yet.
- A stop, telling you this attempt cannot continue here. Even then it is usually a limit or a setting the business chose rather than a judgement about you.
Type a few words from your screen into the filter to find yours.
Messages and what they mean
| What the screen says | What kind of message it is | What it means | Where to go |
|---|---|---|---|
| Move closer to the camera | Tip | The document or your face is small in the frame right now. | Tips during a capture |
| Move farther away from the camera | Tip | You are close enough that the whole thing does not fit. | Tips during a capture |
| Reduce glare by moving away from direct light | Tip | A light source is bouncing off the document. | There is glare on my ID photo |
| Please move to a well-lit area. | Tip | There is not much light where you are. | My ID photo was taken in low light |
| Make sure all four corners of the ID are within the frame | Tip | Part of the document is sitting outside an edge of the frame. | How to take a photo the scan can read |
| Make sure the barcode is within the frame | Tip | The back of the card is not lined up over the barcode. | Why isn’t the barcode being captured clearly? |
| Processing ID, keep it steady | Tip | The picture was taken and is being read. Hold still a moment. | Tips during a capture |
| Center yourself | Tip | Your face is off to one side of the oval. | Tips during a capture |
| Please look into the camera and try removing your glasses | Tip | The step is asking you to try again without glasses on. | Can I wear glasses or a hat? |
| Couldn’t verify photos | Retry | You are being offered another go at the photos. | The couldn’t verify photos screen |
| Too many attempts | Stop | You reached the number of tries the business allows. | Too many attempts |
| Your session has expired, please refresh to try again | Stop | The time window the business set for one sitting ran out. | Session expired |
| A link that opens to nothing, or says it is no longer valid | Stop | The link is past the deadline the business set for it. | My verification link has expired |
| Something went wrong. Please try again later. | Stop | A general fault rather than a decision about you. | Something went wrong |
| We are unable to verify identities in this country | Stop | The country you chose is not one the business has enabled. If you chose South Korea, it is due to Korean privacy law, not the business’s settings. | Unable to verify in this country |
| We can’t access your camera | Stop | The browser or the phone is not letting the page use the camera. | Can’t access your camera |
| Failed to capture screenshot | Stop | The capture did not complete on this device. | Failed to capture screenshot |
| A spinner that never finishes | Stop | The step is waiting on something, usually the connection. | Verification is stuck on loading |
| Continue on App Clip | Normal step | An App Clip on iPhone. Nothing is installed. | Opened as an app on my iPhone |
| Continue on Persona Wallet | Normal step | An Android flow delivered through the Persona Wallet app. | Asked to download Persona Wallet |
| Take a clear photo of the back of your government ID | Normal step | The document has a second side the business asked for. | The verification flow is asking for the back of my ID |
If your wording is not here
Businesses can change the words on most screens, so the sentence in front of you may be phrased differently from anything above. Two things still hold:
- Match the shape, not the words. A camera is open and the text is telling you how to move? That is a tip. A button says try again? That is a retry.
- Copy the wording down before you leave the screen. If you end up contacting the business, the exact sentence is the single most useful thing you can give them.
Start with What to do when verification shows an error, which covers the steps that clear most faults regardless of the wording.