When a hirer crashes and runs, the record is what is left.
The crash-and-run is the hire industry’s worst morning: the car is damaged or gone, the hirer has stopped answering, and the notices are arriving in your name. How it ends is decided by one question: is the person who took the keys an identifiable, pursuable human being with a signed agreement, or a first name in a DM thread? KeyProof exists to make it the former, on every hire.
Already had one? You cannot undo that hire, but the demo shows you how to make it the last one.
Private beta, public launch January 2027The hirer pays their own £4.99 verification feeSet up with you by a founder
No firm has signed yet. KeyProof is choosing up to five UK hire firms for its private beta, set up and walked through their first real hire by a founder: request beta access.
KeyProof Ltd 17333773ICO ZC195906Own PI £1m + cyber £500k, Hiscox
A recorded driver, a sealed agreement, a deposit on the record.
What every hire leaves behind
IdentityPhoto ID matched to a selfie
LicenceDVLA share code, for your own check on gov.uk
ConditionTimestamped photos, both ends
AgreementE-signed, sealed with a hash
DepositLogged, traceable to the hirer
A driver you can actually name
Before the keys move, the hirer photographs their photo ID and takes a selfie in an identity check run by Stripe, and you see the verified result on the booking. That is what turns “some guy from Instagram” into a person the police can pursue and an insurer will engage with.
A licence check that happened, on the record
The hirer supplies a one-time code from the government’s Share Driving Licence service and the last 8 of their licence number, you run the free check on gov.uk, and KeyProof records that it was done and when. If the worst happens, your file shows the entitlement was checked before the hire, which is where your insurance position starts. How the licence check works.
An agreement sealed with a hash
The hirer e-signs your own hire agreement, bound to their verified identity, and the exact terms are hashed at the moment of signing so any later change is detectable. “I never signed anything” stops being an available move.
The deposit and the condition, captured before
The deposit is recorded against the booking before the hire starts, and the car is photographed with timestamps at handover and again at return. Damage gets priced against dated evidence, and the hirer drives knowing the excess is theirs.
One pack for the worst morning
Identity result, licence-check log, sealed agreement, deposit line and photo sets live in one dated record per hire, with a printable incident pack. When it happens, you hand over a file, not a scroll through a chat thread. And when a fine lands instead of a crash, the same record moves it to the hirer.
The marks a return set has to show.
After a crash-and-run, the argument is about marks like these. With the handover set on the same record, you can show whether a mark was there when the car went out. KeyProof keeps the photographs; you decide what is new.
Deterrence first, evidence when it counts.
Honest version: no software stops a crash, and KeyProof is not insurance and pays nothing out. Protection here means two things. First, deterrence: someone planning a crash-and-run tends to look for the firm that checks least, and a fleet that verifies identity, checks the licence and records the deposit is a fleet they move past. Second, position: if it still happens, you begin with a verified name, a sealed agreement and dated evidence, which is the difference between a police case that goes somewhere and a write-off you absorb. See the whole flow from the hirer’s side in the demo.
Crash-and-run protection, answered.
Does KeyProof stop a crash-and-run from happening?
No software can physically stop a crash or make a hirer answer their phone, and this page will not pretend otherwise. What verification changes is who gets targeted and what you are left holding. Someone planning to take a car and disappear tends to pick the firm that checks least, so real checks make you a harder target. And if it happens anyway, you start the recovery with a verified identity, a signed agreement and dated evidence instead of a first name and a dead phone.
Is this insurance?
No. KeyProof is not an insurance product, does not pay out, and does not replace your motor trade or fleet policy. It is the evidence layer that sits underneath a claim: the verified identity, the dated licence-check log, the signed agreement and the condition photos are the kind of evidence an insurer typically looks for when a hire goes wrong.
What do I actually hand to the police and my insurer?
One record per hire, with a printable incident pack: the hirer's verified identity result, the DVLA share code with the dated record of the gov.uk licence check, the e-signed agreement with its terms hashed at signing, the deposit line, and timestamped condition photos from handover. It is assembled while the hire is still normal, so on the worst morning you are printing, not reconstructing.
What if the hirer used someone else's licence?
The identity check is run by Stripe: the hirer photographs their photo ID and takes a selfie, and the face is matched to the document. Because the selfie is matched to the document, someone presenting a licence that is not theirs will not pass that match. At handover you confirm the person collecting against the verified result, so the person who drives away is the person on the record.
What about the fines that arrive weeks later?
PCNs, bus-lane and parking notices usually reach the registered keeper long after the hirer is gone. To pass one on you generally need a signed agreement naming a verified person, with hire dates that cover the contravention; the notice itself sets the exact requirement. A KeyProof record carries exactly that, which is the difference between transferring a fine and absorbing it.
What does it cost?
KeyProof is in private beta until its public launch in January 2027. The founding operators in the beta use the platform free until then, and their hirers pay their own £4.99 verification fee at check-in, as they will after launch. Plans and prices are published at launch.
Make your fleet the hardest target.
And keep the record if it happens anyway.
One link before they arrive, one sealed record per hire, and a name, a signature and a date range on every set of keys you have ever handed over.
KeyProof is onboarding selected UK car hire operators ahead of public launch in January 2027.