I built a tool to check if someone is real online

Over the past year I kept running into the same problem: it’s getting harder to tell who’s real online.

Fake freelancers, fake founders, impersonation accounts, recycled profile photos — everything looks legit on the surface. Reverse image search helps a bit, but it’s fragmented and slow if you want a quick signal.

So I started building NexID — a simple identity search tool that tries to answer one question:

“Does this person actually exist across the web?”

You can drop in a photo, username, or basic info and it scans public signals across platforms to see if there’s a consistent digital footprint. The goal isn’t surveillance or background checks — just helping people avoid obvious catfish/scam situations or verify who they’re dealing with.

I built the first version mainly for:

- remote hiring - online collaborations - marketplaces - dating / social - OSINT curiosity

Still very early and rough around the edges. Would genuinely love feedback from the HN community on:

1. Does this feel useful or unnecessary? 2. Where would you realistically use something like this? 3. What would make you trust a tool like this?

Happy to answer anything about how it works or the challenges building it.

Thanks