The giant company, owned by Alphabet Group, says selfie videos give users more options to log in if their accounts are down or they don’t have access to their regular phones or computers.
Users record a selfie video by looking into the device’s camera and making directed head movements – such as turning right or left or nodding – to capture multiple angles of the face. If the user encounters a problem logging in later, he can record another selfie video with the same content as the video registered with Google to restore his account, as Google will compare the new video with the video used in the recording to verify the person’s identity.
The biggest challenge that Google is trying to solve is proving that the person behind the camera is a real person, and not a program or modified video by a third party that wants to access the user’s account.
“When you use a selfie to sign in, we use multiple layers of protection to prevent impersonation attempts like fake photos and videos (i.e. deepfakes), Google wrote in a blog post. “For example, we compare your video to a saved selfie and ask you to perform simple actions to prove it’s a live video. We also use our standard security methods to detect and help prevent suspicious login attempts.”
The website TechCrunch, which specializes in technology topics, pointed out that the issue is not limited to just individual accounts. With the increase in accuracy of AI-generated videos, user identity verification processes have become a fundamental requirement for any company dealing with logins, payments or sensitive data.
While this new option could help protect accounts from fraud and help users recover closed accounts, it raises concerns about user privacy and the collection of biometric data, an area that regulators and regulators are increasingly scrutinizing with the growing number of companies developing their products based on facial and voice data.
For its part, Google confirms that personal videos (selfies) will be stored safely using encryption, so that they remain protected even when not in use, and that users can delete them from their Google accounts at any time.
