Does Hinge Keep Your Selfie Verification Video?

No. Hinge says your video selfie is deleted and never added to your page, but it keeps a few screenshots from the video for the life of your account to audit and manage the feature. Outside the regions where Hinge requires its Face Check scan, the facial geometry templates built from the video are deleted within 24 hours. None of it appears on your page, so your matches see only the badge and the photos you chose.

Two things go.

The first is the video itself. Hinge's Selfie Verification page says the video selfie has been deleted and has not been added to your profile. Its Face Check page says the same for the required scan: the original video is not kept, even in the regions where the scan is mandatory.

The second is the face data made from it. To compare your video with your photos, Hinge's system detects your face in both and turns its geometry into a unique number, which Hinge calls a template. Outside Face Check regions, Hinge says those templates are deleted within 24 hours, once the verification process is finished. It adds that the deleted data is permanently purged and cannot be retrieved.

Three things stay with your account.

A few still screenshots from your video, which Hinge keeps for as long as your account exists to audit and manage the feature. The result of the check, verified or not. And an age estimate, since the templates are also used to estimate your age.

Hinge also says it may use your age estimate and those audit images to train select machine learning models that power its trust and safety tools, and to test and audit those tools.

What happens after you close your account is where Hinge's own pages differ in the detail. The Selfie Verification page, the Face Check page and the age check page each describe the timing a little differently. All of them point to Hinge's Privacy Policy, so read that if the exact timing matters to you.

Hinge says the verification is run for it by Match Group, LLC, a Match Group company acting as its service provider. The face data, the screenshots and the age estimate are stored on Amazon Web Services. Hinge's Selfie Verification page says it does not share your facial geometry information and screenshots with other third parties.

It also says it processes the verification information with your consent.

In the regions where Hinge requires a Face Check scan, the face data is not deleted within a day. Hinge says it is kept for the life of the account, so it can keep checking your photos as you change them and help detect other accounts using your likeness.

The video still goes. What stays is the geometry. And in those regions, Hinge says you cannot delete that verification data without deleting your account, because completing the scan is a condition of using the app there.

Only the result. A verified page shows the Selfie Verified badge, and Hinge says every user can see which profiles are verified, whether or not they verified themselves.

The video is never added to your page, and Hinge's age check page says the audit images are not added to it either. So nothing from the recording reaches a woman looking at your page. She sees a badge next to the photos you already picked.

That is your call, and outside Face Check regions it really is a choice. Some men would rather not hand any face data to an app, and skipping verification is a legitimate decision.

For most men, though, the trade is small and the benefit is real. Hinge's own advice on avoiding scammers tells daters to look for the Selfie Verified badge. Verification is also a baseline requirement for Hinge's Signals badge. That badge marks daters who show thoughtful participation.

Think about the moment it matters. She has your like, maybe a comment, and she is deciding whether to answer. A badge will not make her answer. It does remove one small question from her mind, and by the time she reads your first message, you would rather she was thinking about what you wrote than whether the man in the photos is real.

If you decide to go ahead, give yourself the best chance of passing the first time. Hinge asks for at least one photo that shows your face from the front: crisp, unfiltered, with you as the only subject, no sunglasses, and facing the camera directly.

Then record with your face well lit and fully visible, and follow the prompts. It is quick. The video is deleted once the check is done, and what is left on your page is a badge.