How breeder verification works

What the verified breeder badge means, what the identity check involves, and what we are told about you.

  1. 1.Verification is optional

    You can list animals and sell them without it. The badge exists because a buyer is often sending money for an animal they have not stood next to, and it tells them a real person stands behind the farm.

  2. 2.What the check is

    Our partner Stripe checks a government photo ID and a photograph of your face, and confirms that the two are the same person. It takes about two minutes and it is easiest on a phone.

  3. 3.What HoofnHorn is told

    Your name as it appears on the document, and whether the check passed. Nothing else. Not your date of birth, not your document number, not the address on your ID. The document and the photographs go to Stripe directly and never reach our servers.

  4. 4.Three attempts

    A check that fails still uses an attempt, because it ran. Most failures are a blurred photo or glare rather than anything about you, and a second try in better light usually settles it. After three, the ID route closes.

  5. 5.You do not have to use the ID check

    Add your farm paperwork instead: an EIN letter, a state registration, or your registry papers. A person reads it by hand. That route is open from the start, and it is also where you land if the ID check does not work out.

Before you start

Most checks that fail do so for one of five reasons, and all five are fixable in advance.

  • A valid government photo ID that has not expired. The document itself, not a photocopy and not a photo of one on a screen.
  • A phone, if you have one. Phone cameras take better photos than most webcams.
  • Even light. Avoid glare, strong overhead lights that shadow your face, and sitting directly in front of a bright window.
  • The whole document in frame. Lay it flat, and do not let an edge fall outside the picture.
  • Nothing covering your face. Take off sunglasses, a mask, or a low hat brim.

Deleting what Stripe holds

If you close your account we ask Stripe to delete the copy it holds for us, images included.

Stripe also keeps its own copy as a controller in its own right, and that one is not ours to delete. Write to privacy@stripe.com to ask Stripe to remove it, or to stop Stripe using your identity data to improve its technology.

What we collect and who we share it with is set out in the privacy notice.