What documents matrimonial verification actually needs

Bronze — email and phone

What it asks for: nothing you upload. A verification link is sent to your email address and a code to your phone number.

What it proves: both are real and both reach you. That is a low bar and it is meant to be — its job is to make throwaway accounts cost something.

Email verification happens at sign-up, so most accounts have part of this already.

Silver — government ID

What it asks for: a photograph or scan of one government-issued identity document. Aadhaar, PAN, passport, driving licence and voter ID are all accepted. The name on it has to match the name on your profile.

What it proves: a real, officially issued identity exists behind the profile and the name is not invented.

What it does not prove: that the person who uploaded it is the person on it. That is the next level, and the distinction matters — a photographed ID can be borrowed.

Practical advice that applies to every site, not only this one: mask the first eight digits of an Aadhaar number before you upload it. UIDAI's own guidance is that a masked Aadhaar is sufficient wherever full identification is not legally required, and a matrimonial profile is not one of those cases. A readable full Aadhaar number sitting in any company's storage is a risk you are taking for no additional benefit.

Gold — live selfie matched to the ID

What it asks for: a selfie taken at that moment, not an uploaded photograph from your gallery.

What it proves: the face in front of the camera is the face on the government ID from the previous level. This is the step that makes stolen and stock photographs stop working, and it is the single most useful badge on any matrimonial platform.

If you only ever do one level, do this one — and when you are judging someone else's profile, this is the badge to look for.

Platinum — education or employment

What it asks for: a degree certificate, a marksheet, an offer letter, an employment ID or a recent payslip. One of them, not all.

What it proves: the stated qualification or job exists. Inflated designations and invented degrees are common enough in matrimonial listings that this is worth more than it sounds.

You can black out a salary figure on a payslip before uploading. The document is being read for the employer and the role, not the amount.

Diamond — family reference

What it asks for: a family member who confirms the profile, through the family access feature.

What it proves: the family knows about the profile and stands behind it. In arranged-marriage contexts, where a family is involved from the start anyway, this is often the badge the other family cares about most.

What happens to the document after you upload it

This is the question worth asking of every matrimonial site, and the answer is usually buried.

On ShaadiPakki, uploaded files are stored outside the public web root and are served only through an authenticated route that checks your session, your block list and your visibility setting before it returns a single byte. There is no URL that works without being signed in, and there is no URL that works for someone you have blocked. Search engines cannot reach them.

Verification documents are reviewed by a human and are never shown on your profile. What appears publicly is the badge, not the document — nobody browsing profiles sees your Aadhaar, your payslip or your degree certificate.

A review ends in one of two states: verified, or rejected with a reason you can read, so a blurry photograph can be retaken rather than leaving you guessing.

What a badge is worth when you are reading someone else's profile

Treat each badge as the single narrow fact it is. Bronze means they can be reached. Silver means an ID exists. Gold means the photographs are of them. Platinum means the job is real. Diamond means a family vouched.

None of them means the person is unmarried, solvent, or honest about why they are here. Verification raises the cost of pretending; it does not replace a video call, meeting in person, or asking direct questions.