Identity Verification Policy

1. How verification works today

Identity verification is available and it is optional. You can join, browse, host, travel, offer storage, list rides and run events without it. An unverified person is not automatically unsafe. Their identity has simply not been checked by us.

The process is deliberately simple. From your settings you send us a clear photo of your New Zealand driver licence or passport, and a selfie holding that document. A person at ParkUp looks at the two images, decides whether they match and whether the document looks genuine, and marks your profile verified or not verified. If we decline, we tell you why and you can try again.

Nothing on ParkUp currently requires verification. If that changes, the page will say so before you start, and we will give notice before making verification a condition of anything you already do.

2. What the verified mark means

A verified mark confirms one narrow thing: that a person at ParkUp looked at an identity document and a selfie and was satisfied they were the same person. It is not:

• a ParkUp endorsement;
• a safety guarantee;
• a character or suitability check;
• a criminal-background check;
• verification of a listing, land, vehicle or event;
• a promise that the person's conduct or information will remain reliable.

The mark can also be earned in more than one way. Some people were verified under the earlier ParkUp system and carry the mark without having sent us a document here. We may add other kinds of verification later, such as meeting someone from the ParkUp community in person. Where we do, we will say which kind a profile holds rather than showing one mark that means several different things.

You still need to assess requests yourself, communicate clearly and follow the safety guidance relevant to the arrangement. A verified mark is one small signal, not a substitute for your own judgement.

3. What we collect and who sees it

We ask for two images, and nothing else:

• a photo of your New Zealand driver licence or passport;
• a selfie of you holding that document.

We do not ask for a copy of any other document, a bank statement, a video, or a liveness scan. You need a display name on your profile before you can submit, so we know which account the check belongs to.

Only ParkUp staff reviewing verification see these images. They are held in a private area of our system, separate from profile photos and listing images, and are never shown on your profile, returned by our public API or shared with other members. We do not sell them, use them for advertising, or use them to train any automated system.

Your identity document contains more than we need, including your address and licence or passport number. We only use it to confirm that you are the person in the selfie and that the document looks genuine. We do not copy the details into your profile.

4. No provider, no face matching

ParkUp does not use a third-party identity verification service. Your images are not sent to an outside company, an identity network or a fraud database. The check is done by a person here.

We do not use automated face matching, facial recognition or liveness detection, and we do not create or store a biometric template of your face. Because there is no automated biometric processing, the Biometric Processing Privacy Code 2025 does not currently apply to this feature.

If we ever move to an automated or third-party check, that is a different feature with different risks. We would complete a privacy impact assessment first, publish a new version of this policy naming the provider, the information, the countries involved and the retention rules, and give notice before it took effect. We would not switch it on quietly under this version.

Sources: Biometric Processing Privacy Code 2025 and Information Privacy Principle 12.

5. Cost

Verification is free. There is no charge to submit, no charge to try again after a decline, and no payment step anywhere in the process. ParkUp does not process payments of any kind at the moment.

If we ever introduce a charge or an optional contribution alongside verification, the amount and any GST will be shown before you start, any contribution will be clearly optional and unticked by default, and declining to contribute will never change the outcome of your check.

Source: Commerce Commission pricing guidance.

6. Decisions, appeals and trying again

Most declines are practical rather than suspicious. A photo may be blurred, cropped, glared or too dark to read, or the two images may be hard to compare. A decline is not a finding that you were dishonest, and we do not record it as one.

When we decline, we tell you the reason and you can submit again straight away with better photos. There is no limit on attempts and no charge. You can hold one open submission at a time.

If you think a decision was wrong, email hello@parkup.nz and a different person will look at it where that is practical. We are a small team, so we will tell you honestly how long it is likely to take rather than promise a fixed turnaround we cannot keep.

We may ask you to verify again after an account recovery, a suspected compromise or a reasonable concern about fraud. We will explain why before you start.

7. Storage, retention and access

Your document and selfie are stored in a private area of our system, kept apart from profile photos and listing images and not reachable from the public site.

Once your check is decided we no longer need the images. We keep the fact of the check, the date and the outcome, because that is what the verified mark rests on, but the images themselves serve no further purpose.

You can ask us to delete your document and selfie at any time, before or after a decision, by emailing hello@parkup.nz. We will do it unless we are dealing with a live safety or fraud matter involving your account, and we will tell you if that is the case. Asking us to delete the images after a successful check does not remove your verified mark.

We are adding automatic deletion at the point of decision so that this happens without you having to ask. Until that is live, the email route above is the one to rely on, and we would rather say so plainly than imply an automatic deletion that is not yet running.

If you close your account, verification images are removed with the rest of your personal information. See the Privacy Policy for how account closure and deletion work.

You can ask for access to and correction of what we hold about you. If we recorded the wrong outcome, tell us and we will fix it.

Source: Information Privacy Principle 9 on retention.

8. Contact

For privacy questions, to challenge a verification result, or to ask us to delete your document and selfie, email hello@parkup.nz. You can also complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.