Google selfie video account recovery option

mta999

Google have introduced a new account recovery option for use when all other account recovery options have failed

If you record a selfie video now and need to recover your account in the future you can basically identify yourself by this method and get your Google account back

https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/safety-security/selfie-video-sign-in/

flaneurs_lobster

Not available for my (main) account - wonder how it's being rolled out?

Newcad

From the start of that article:

Your Google Account holds a lot of valuable information, from cherished photos to important emails and documents.

fine as long as you trust that it will never be hacked, and yes Google know that they are not that secure and account hacks do happen

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6294825?hl=en

Why give then more data in the form of a video that may also be hacked?

You also have to wonder if this is mainly for training a Google AI in facial recognition.

forgotmyname

Just keep your login and backup on different devices and your 99% good.

If your login email is on a PC then use your backup email on your phone so if one is compromised
they do not have the other to reset the account.

I would not be splashing a personal video onto Google, you know they are going to use it to train AI in something.
Google started with the captures, and we thought it was a good thing but we later find out it's training their early AI
projects.

flaneurs_lobster

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82080892#Comment_82080892

Not sure what you mean by having an email account on a single device?

An email account is rather like a website, accessible from any device, perhaps the security of individual devices is more important and that is where the use of passkeys is useful.

I've got a Google/gmail account that is used on one phone only, but that doesn't make it that phone's email account.

forgotmyname

You only access one email from one device and only access the backup email from a 2nd device. I have several
emails that I use for password recovery and they are only accessible from one dual boot drive and even then
I need to boot to a virtual machine to access those emails.

It sounded like a good idea in my head and my simple passwords I set in the 90's are still active and never
been compromised. Some in the days before you needed 8 characters never mind numbers and capitals
and special characters.

My Amazon one especially is super short.

flaneurs_lobster

Don't want to doubt your understanding but are you saying that if I had your backup email address and password I couldn't access it from any machine but your own?

Would mean that you are hosting an email server with its own email domain on your own machine, possible but rather unlikely.

forgotmyname

I do have my own domain and a hosted server, not common I agree but you don't need that.

You just have xyz123@email where you only ever access on your phone. Then for the password reset or account
recovery you have 123xyz@email where you only access that on a PC or a tablet and never access both emails on a
single device.

If one device is compromised then the other will still be safe.

It works for any email hosting gmail, yahoo etc etc.

sausage_time

Seems to me that Google already offer a wide choice of recovery options (device prompt on multiple devices, backup recovery phone number, backup e-mail address, authenticator app, printed backup codes).

PHK

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82081037#Comment_82081037

I'm not sure that works because if one device is compromised they'll have the (in your case short password) and will be able to log into the email from elsewhere. From there they can change the recovery address etc.

There really is no substitute for using a non-trivial password, not allowing a browser to remember the password and using a separate password manager.