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.
This is the form, not the verification
You filled in a screen, tapped the button, and either nothing happened or a line of red text appeared. Nothing has been submitted, nothing has been rejected, and no attempt has been used up. The screen is simply refusing to send an entry it cannot accept.
That distinction matters, because people often assume a red field means they have failed something. They have not.
Find the field it means
- Scroll up. The message usually sits directly under the field it belongs to, and on a small screen that field can be off the top of the view.
- Look for anything marked in red or outlined, including boxes you thought you had filled in.
- Check the boxes you have to tick. A consent box or a confirmation box left unticked is the most common reason a button stays dead.
- Check any field you skipped because it looked optional. If the business marked it required, it is required.
- Close the keyboard. On a phone it can cover the very error you are looking for, and sometimes the button itself.
The entries that get rejected most
- Dates. Day and month order changes by country, and a date picker that opens on today’s date makes it easy to submit the wrong year.
- Phone numbers. Some screens want a country code, some add it for you, and some reject the leading zero.
- Addresses. If the screen offers suggestions as you type, pick one rather than typing the whole thing, because a free typed address often will not validate.
- National ID or reference numbers. Type these rather than pasting. A pasted value tends to bring spaces or dashes with it.
- Names. Enter your name as it appears on the document you are about to show. If a field will not take an accent, a hyphen, or a second surname, enter it as close as the field allows and tell the business that asked you to verify afterwards.
- Fields that are only for one country. A postcode field built for one format will refuse another, and there is no way around that from your side.
If a field will genuinely not take your details
Some people have details that a form simply has no shape for: a single mononym, an address with no street number, a date of birth with no known day. This is a real limitation of how the business built its screens, not something you can solve by rephrasing.
Stop trying variations. Contact the business that asked you to verify, tell them which field it is and what your real detail is, and ask how they want you to proceed. They built this screen the way it is, so they are the ones who can change it or offer you another route.
If the button does nothing at all
No red text, no message, just a dead button. Try these in order:
- Reload the page and fill it in again.
- Turn off an ad blocker or content blocker for this page. See Verification is blocked by an ad blocker.
- Try a different browser, or move the verification flow to your phone.
- Check your connection, because a submission that cannot reach anywhere looks exactly like a dead button.