Verification
What Verified means
The Verified mark beside a name opens to a list of the checks that profile has passed. Here is what each one is and how it is done.
Businesses
A business shows the mark once it proves it owns its website's domain. Its panel also lists these, where they apply.
It is registered with the government
A business can give us its registration number, and we look it up on its own country's government register: the Hong Kong Companies Registry, Singapore's Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority, the British Columbia Corporate Registry, France's Sirene register, the Czech business register (ARES), Poland's National Court Register (KRS). The profile shows it once the register says it is live and registered to the business on the profile. Where the registered name and the profile's name differ, such as a trading name or a trust, a person at Acclaimedly compares the two first. We look again every month, and a number that is cancelled or struck off stops showing.
Or its registration certificate is checked
Where we cannot ask a country's register directly, every US state among them, a business can upload its certificate of registration or incorporation. A person at Acclaimedly checks that it is genuine and names this business, and compares it with the register where that can be looked up. The profile says the certificate was checked by Acclaimedly, and the certificate itself is never shown to anyone outside it.
It owns its website's domain
The business proves it controls the domain by answering a code we send to an email address at that domain, adding a record we give it to the domain's DNS, or putting a file we give it on the website. The profile names the domain and the date. If the business starts again with a different domain, the mark comes down until the new one is proved.
Its links are safe
Every link on a business profile, its website included, is checked by our safety filters, for malware and unsuitable sites, when it is saved and again every week. A link that fails takes the profile off the site straight away while our team looks at it.
It is not on the sanctions list
Every week, each business's names are compared with the official sanctions lists that apply where it is based: Australia's, the United States', the United Kingdom's, the European Union's or Switzerland's; Canada's, New Zealand's or Malaysia's together with the United Nations Security Council list; and the UN list itself in Hong Kong and Singapore, which give effect to it rather than keeping lists of their own. The profile names the list and when it was last checked. Anything that looks like a match goes to our team, and the line is not shown until a person has looked.
Its staff are confirmed by both sides
A person appears on a business's staff only once the business and the person have each confirmed it. Neither can add the other on their own.
Personal profiles
A personal profile shows the mark when it is run by its owner. Its panel also lists these, where they apply.
They run their own profile
A personal profile is run by its owner, from their own signed-in account. A profile we put up for somebody who has not joined does not show the mark until they claim it and we hand it over.
Their workplace is confirmed
Where a profile says someone works at a business on Acclaimedly, that business has confirmed it.
On every profile
Both kinds of profile list these when they have them, with a count.
Credentials checked against evidence
A licence, qualification, award or membership is checked on its own, by a person at Acclaimedly, against evidence the member provides. One that passes carries its own Verified label beside it.
Recommendations signed by named members
Every recommendation is written by a member under their own name, from their own profile. Anonymous praise is not accepted anywhere on Acclaimedly.
Photos reviewed by our team
Every logo, portrait and photo is looked at by our team before it appears, and again whenever it is replaced.
What verification does not mean
- It is not an endorsement. It means we checked the things listed, not that we vouch for the business, the person or their work.
- We do not check identity documents.
- A registration shows the business is on the government register. It does not mean the business holds a licence or is in good standing in any other way.
- Sanctions screening compares names with the published list. It is not a background check.
- A registration certificate is checked once, when it is uploaded. We do not check afterwards whether the business is still registered, as we do where we can ask the register itself.
- Sanctions checks are not yet available in every country. Where we cannot check a business against the lists that apply where it is based, its profile says nothing about sanctions.
- We do not check that what a member says about themselves is true.
- Recommendations are not part of verification. They are the opinions of the named members who wrote them.
Anyone signed in can report a recommendation, and a person reads every report. Reporting a recommendation
Where the information comes from
Registration details come from each country’s official register, and sanctions screening from each government’s official list. None of these governments endorses Acclaimedly or any business on it.
- Registers
- the Companies Registry of the Hong Kong SAR Government; the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), through data.gov.sg; BC Registries, through OrgBook BC; INSEE's Sirene register, through recherche-entreprises.api.gouv.fr; the Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic (ARES); the Ministry of Justice of Poland (KRS).
- Sanctions lists
- Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control; the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; the European Commission; Switzerland's State Secretariat for Economic Affairs; Global Affairs Canada; New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade; Malaysia's Ministry of Home Affairs; the United Nations Security Council.
Contains information from Entities Registered with ACRA, accessed from data.gov.sg, which is made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0. Hong Kong company information is from the Companies Registry of the Hong Kong SAR Government, used under the DATA.GOV.HK terms. Contains information from the Australian Business Register and BC Registries.