About Verified Handles
Verified Handles is a free, non-profit, public directory of the official social media accounts and other online identifiers of notable people and organisations, so you can find the real account, not an impersonator.
180,913 people and organisations listed.
How to use it to check an account
Search for the person or organisation by name and open their entry: it lists the accounts they run, platform by platform, each linked. If the account you found is there, with the same handle, it is the one our sources name as theirs. If it isn’t, that doesn’t prove it fake, since an entry can be incomplete, but check it further before you trust it. Most entries are listed from public sources; only those with the Verified badge have been checked by the Verified Handles team.
How to check whether a social media account is official covers the other checks worth making, and how to report an impersonator.
Why it exists
Impersonation is everywhere. Verified Handles gives you one place to look up the accounts a person or organisation runs across platforms, so you can follow, cite, or contact the real one rather than an impersonator.
Where the data comes from
Handles are gathered from public sources:
- Wikidata, which the directory is kept in sync with;
- the site’s own history, built up since 2020;
- reviewers, who check the additions and corrections anyone can suggest;
- the people and organisations themselves, who can claim their entry or apply for one.
Entries are kept current as their sources change. Entries with the Verified badge have been checked by the Verified Handles team. How we gather and check handles explains each source.
Verified and Claimed
Verified: the Verified Handles team has checked the entry and confirmed it is the genuine record for that person or organisation.
Claimed: the person or organisation the entry is about has proven control of it, and manages it.
An entry can be one, both or neither. How verification works explains each.
Who runs it
Verified Handles is a non-profit service, run and funded by JEM Media (JEM MEDIA LTD, company number 16287434, registered in England and Wales). It runs no ads and takes no donations: how it is funded.
Verified Handles was founded by James Haworth.
Writing about Verified Handles? The press kit has logos, screenshots, figures and a contact for the press.
Verified Handles elsewhere
The official accounts of Verified Handles, listed on its own entry like anyone else’s. An account using the Verified Handles name that isn’t listed here isn’t ours.
A short history
Verified Handles began in late 2020 as a wiki at verifiedhandles.com. In 2026 it was rebuilt from the ground up, keeping every entry and its full edit history, and since September 2026 it has been served at verifiedhandles.org. What’s changed lists what is new since.
Open and free
The directory is open data, released into the public domain under CC0. You’re welcome to read it, link to a handle, or build on it with the API.
The one exception is a description taken from Wikipedia, which its entry marks “from Wikipedia”. That text stays under Wikipedia’s licence, CC BY-SA 4.0: if you reuse it, credit the article and share what you make from it under the same licence.