Verification at source means confirming a fact about a person against the system of record where that fact lives — a license registry, an employer, an authoritative database — rather than against documents or claims supplied by the person being vetted.
The phrase is borrowed from a standard that regulated industries already run on. Hospitals do not hire a physician on a diploma PDF; they run primary source verification against the licensing board. AI training data is produced by workforces vetted far more casually than the nurses those models will one day advise — and verification at source is the correction.
The three levels of vetting
- Self-report — the contributor types their credentials into a form. Zero verification; the industry default.
- Document collection — the contributor uploads a diploma, license, or employment letter, and the vendor takes it at face value. Looks rigorous; inherits every incentive problem, because the person being vetted controls the evidence.
- Verification at source — the vendor confirms the fact with the registry, employer, or record system directly. The direction of trust inverts: the confirming party has no stake in the outcome.
What it applies to
At Rainbow, verification at source covers four properties per expert, established before their first task: identity, employer, role, and seniority. Each closes a distinct fraud path — identity stops impersonation and account sharing; employer stops the fictional workplace; role and seniority stop the receptionist presented as a physician. The result attaches to every unit of work as provenance.
A resume is a claim. A system of record is a fact.
One boundary worth stating: verification at source is an onboarding standard, not a surveillance regime. It establishes who the expert is and what they are qualified to do; ongoing integrity — that the verified person is the one doing the work — is a separate discipline that operates during the engagement, and a fair question to put to any vendor, including us.
Expert human data, verified at source.