Verifying a document
Checking a document someone sent you is free and needs no account. Here is what you get back.
Anyone can check a document. There is no account, no sign-up, and no charge, and that is deliberate: a proof only one party can check is not much of a proof.
You provide the file you were sent. Your browser calculates its fingerprint and sends only that. Audrie looks for records matching it and tells you what it found.
What comes back
Whether it matches. If a record exists for that exact file, you get it. If nothing matches, you learn that too, which is a real answer rather than an error. A document that has been altered after authentication produces a different fingerprint and will not match, which is the point.
Who authenticated it, whether their identity was verified independently or attested by their employer, and their organisation if they signed on its behalf.
When, confirmed by the public ledger rather than by Audrie's own clock.
Whether it is still valid, and if it has been revoked, the reason.
How the signer is standing right now, calculated at the moment you ask rather than recalled from when the document was signed.
Where to check it yourself on the public ledger, without involving Audrie.
A result is about the document, not about a person. It tells you a valid authentication exists for this exact file. Where more than one person has authenticated the same document, read each record on its own terms.
Audrie errs toward saying no
If any part of a check cannot be fully substantiated, the answer is not "valid". There is no middle setting and no benefit of the doubt. A document is reported as verified only when everything checks out, which means a positive answer is worth something.
The same applies to timing. A record is committed to the public ledger within seconds, and until that has settled, a check reports the record as still settling rather than claiming a confirmation that has not arrived.
Why a document can stop verifying
A document that verified last year can correctly fail to verify today, and the reason matters.
The record itself was revoked. Perhaps the wrong file was authenticated, or the document has been superseded. The reason is always recorded, and it is worth reading: a superseded document was still validly authenticated at the time, which is a different situation from one withdrawn because something was wrong with it.
The signer's identity verification was withdrawn. If it turns out an identity was never validly established, everything authenticated under it is flagged, no matter when it was signed. Nothing rested on that identity, so nothing should stand on it.
Other changes apply from their date onward. Someone leaving an organisation, closing their account, or rotating their keys does not unwind documents they validly authenticated beforehand. Those documents were genuine when they were made and they remain genuine. Treating an ordinary departure as though it retrospectively invalidated years of legitimate work would make the record useless.
Checking without Audrie
Every record points to its entry on the public ledger, and every authenticated document carries that pointer inside it. You can inspect the entry directly through any public Hedera explorer or mirror node, none of which Audrie operates.
This is the part that matters most if you are deciding whether to depend on Audrie at all. You do not have to trust that we are telling the truth about a record, and you do not have to trust that we will still be here. The evidence is public and it is checkable by you.
Keeping proof that you checked
If you need to demonstrate later that you performed a check, you can obtain a verification certificate. That requires an account, because it is evidence about you rather than about the document. See what you receive.
Next
- What we do and don't claim sets out exactly where Audrie's answer stops.
- Verifying without Audrie is the step-by-step version for developers.