Why Provn is built on decentralised identity — and the promises that come with it.
Most online age and identity checks collect your personal information and keep it in a company's database. Provn is built the opposite way: you verify once, the proof lives on your device, and you decide — every time — exactly what a site learns about you. Usually that's a single fact: "over 18", nothing more.
When a website asks "are you over 18?", Provn answers exactly that — with a cryptographic proof. It never reveals your date of birth, your name, your address, or your document. You can prove you're old enough without proving who you are.
Provn issues your credentials to a decentralised identifier (a DID) — an identity you control with a private key that never leaves your phone. That's a fundamental difference from traditional systems:
Your data sits in a company's database. You trust them to hold it, not lose it, not sell it, not get breached — and every check can be logged and profiled.
Your credential lives on your device, cryptographically signed. Proving something verifies the maths — no central server is phoned, no record of where or when you proved, and no honeypot of identities to breach.
You prove things about yourself like showing a sealed, tamper-proof stamp — not by handing over a photocopy of your passport.
Centralised systems are honeypots — everyone's data in one database, so a single breach exposes millions at once. Provn removes the honeypot entirely:
To confirm you're a real, verified person the first time, your ID document and a selfie are checked by our regulated verification partner. This is the one step where a specialist processes your document — it's how we know a credential is genuine. Provn itself does not retain those documents or images; what remains is the minimal, signed attestation in your wallet. We use a partner to check identity — never to build a profile of you.