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Human Presence

Human presence is the core concept that BotShield verifies. Understanding what it means and how it differs from other verification methods is key to evaluating BotShield for your platform.

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What is Human Presence?

Human presence is the verification that a human is physically present at the moment an action is taken. It is not about:
  • Behavior patterns
  • Device fingerprints
  • Session history
  • User accounts or identity
It is about confirming that a real human is performing the action right now, using hardware-backed biometric authentication on their device.

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Why Human Presence Matters

Bots Can Mimic Behavior

Automated systems can replicate user behavior patterns, solve CAPTCHAs, and pass behavioral analysis

Presence Requires a Human

Actual human presence verified through device biometrics (Face ID / Touch ID) cannot be faked by bots

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How BotShield Verifies Presence

BotShield uses the device’s built-in biometric and authentication hardware:
  1. Hardware-backed authentication — Face ID, Touch ID, or device passcode via the Secure Enclave
  2. Real-time interaction — The authentication happens at the moment of the action
  3. Cryptographic attestation — The result is a signed Human Presence Signal (HPS) token
This is fundamentally different from:
  • CAPTCHA — Solves puzzles (can be automated by CAPTCHA-solving services)
  • 2FA — Requires user account and device ownership verification
  • Behavior Analysis — Tracks patterns over time (can be mimicked)
  • Device Fingerprinting — Identifies devices, not humans

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Properties of Presence

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Presence is Transient

Presence exists only at the moment of action. It is not stored, tracked, or reused.

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Presence is Action-Scoped

Verification is limited to the specific action:
  • Checking out — verify presence for checkout
  • Buying tickets — verify presence for ticket purchase
  • Signing up — verify presence for signup

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Presence is Consumed

Once verified, the HPS is consumed by the action:
  • No reuse across actions
  • No session persistence
  • No cross-platform tracking

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Presence Requires Secure Device State

The user’s device must have a system passcode enabled. Without it, BotShield cannot issue a valid attestation. Learn more about device security requirements.

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Census Result States — What a Partner Sees

Census performs one operation: anonymous human attestation — one operation, no modes. No identity ever crosses the partner boundary — Census tells you that a human verified, never who. At the partner contract, every Census event projects to one of three result states: These three states are the partner-facing vocabulary. They are derived inside BotShield from a finer-grained internal decision pair (verdict + reason) via deriveCensusResultState in the engine’s verdict grid — partners never see the raw pair.

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Internal Verdict + Reason (engine only)

Internally, a single presence event is binary — the user either passed the biometric check or did not. But the engine needs more nuance than binary to decide Human Verified vs MultiPass Active vs Human Unavailable. It computes a two-field decision pair: Two scope levels drive the verdict: standard scopes pass on either MultiPass continuity or fresh Face ID; elevated scopes always require live Face ID. Partners configure scope per action — see Action-Scoped Enforcement. Platforms enforce off the result state. BotShield attests. Platforms enforce.

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What BotShield Does NOT Return to Partners

No identity ever crosses the boundary. Census performs one operation: anonymous human attestation — one operation, no modes (no linked-account or “private” toggle), and partners never receive an email, a BotShield user id, an auth_mode, or any identity-bearing token. You learn that a human verified, never who. You correlate the result to your own system by the request_id you generated and the metadata you supplied. See Webhooks. BotShield also internally tracks a user-facing Human Presence tier (New / Stable / Strong / Durable) on the user’s Account tab — but this tier is never returned to partners. Per Engine Spec v3.4 §2.6 + §6.4 the visible tier is presence-only (“how human”) and intentionally separate from MultiPass durability (“how durable”). The tier informs the user about their own presence trajectory and is not part of any partner integration. Partners see only the anonymous result state.

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Benefits of Presence Verification

Privacy-First

No tracking, profiling, or surveillance

User-Friendly

5-second verification for returning users

Effective

Hardware-backed — stops bots reliably

Flexible

Works for any action type via REST API or SDK
Human presence is the first of two attestations BotShield produces. The second — a Proof of Resolution — is produced by BotShield Queue when a human confirms a specific action an AI agent proposed on their behalf. Both are anonymous and hardware-backed; presence answers “is a human here?”, while a Proof of Resolution answers “did the authorized human confirm this exact action?”.