security<\/p>\n
You’ll need to be able to move your head side to side to make sure you’re not a deepfake<\/p>\n
Tired of worrying about how you might recover all the precious data stored in your Google account if you somehow lose your devices and forget your email address and phone number? Just give Google a video of your face and AI will recognize you to restore access.<\/p>\n
Selfie sign-ins are now available for Google accounts, the Chocolate Factory announced<\/a> on Thursday. This option is restricted to regaining access after email or phone recovery options fail.<\/p>\n Going through the process of adding a verification selfie is rather simple: Just follow the steps outlined on Google\u2019s help page<\/a> for selfie video management to enroll. You need a device with a camera and the ability to move your head from side to side in order to show off your profile, as well as your full-frontal face card.\u00a0<\/p>\n That side-to-side movement is designed to prevent the use of live deepfake videos, as real-time face replacement tends to struggle with profiles<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to Google, if you can\u2019t use any other account recovery method<\/a>, the company\u2019s system can prompt you to take another selfie video for comparison to the one taken earlier, verifying it’s you and letting you back into your account.\u00a0<\/p>\n Why this, why now?<\/p>\n This feature announcement from Google raised a number of questions among The Register\u2019s news team. Why now, for starters? Deepfake videos are constantly improving, and it\u2019s likely only a matter of time until a side view can be handled with ease.\u00a0<\/p>\n A Google rep told The Register that it sees a trend toward passkeys and other forms of device-based authentication, which means a lost device often means a lost account.<\/p>\n \u201cUsers can choose whatever method they prefer, we expect most will prefer the ease of use of passkeys for signing in regularly, and use selfie for times like when they lose their phone or the device with their passkey,\u201d Google said in response to our questions.\u00a0<\/p>\n So it is not like Apple\u2019s Face ID or face unlock on Android, Google confirmed \u2013 \u201cthey serve different purposes.\u201d That, and it might not even be sufficient to prove you\u2019re you.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPassing a selfie video alone may not always be sufficient to get back into your account,\u201d Google explained in the email. \u201cWe evaluate the overall risk based on many factors and may require additional sign-in methods to help make sure it\u2019s actually you signing into your account.\u201d<\/p>\n That’s because Apple devices with Face ID, and some higher-end Android devices, are equipped with infrared cameras that capture depth maps to match points on a user\u2019s face to a stored 3D map of their appearance. Those are harder to fool.\u00a0<\/p>\n Google\u2019s selfie sign-in system, on the other hand, is essentially relying on plain video, AI, and the hope that deepfakes haven\u2019t become good enough to get around those turn-to-the-side distortions. Unfortunately, facial recognition AI is reliably<\/a> unreliable<\/a>. Heck, even Google\u2019s had plenty<\/a> of run-ins<\/a> with it over the years, and good facial recognition algorithms are a hot<\/a> commodity<\/a> nowadays<\/a>.<\/p>\n Then there’s the fact that you\u2019re giving Google a live recording of your face, and that could be quite valuable to the company in other contexts.\u00a0<\/p>\n As Google noted in its announcement, those facial scans are encrypted at rest, are only stored with user consent, and are \u201cused only for helping you sign in, unless you opt to share it for additional purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou have the option to allow Google to use your video and related data to help ongoing efforts to develop and improve facial recognition, age estimation, and other verification methods,\u201d the company notes on the selfie help page.\u00a0<\/p>\n