Recover your Instagram or Facebook account with video selfie

Meta is testing facial recognition to allow you to instantly recover your Instagram or Facebook account if you get banned. The process for submitting a video selfie is largely similar to that of signing up for Face ID, requiring you to turn your head in different directions.

The company also uses the technology to detect and block celebrity scams…

Recover your Instagram or Facebook account

You can be locked out of your account if you forget your login information, no longer have access to a two-factor authentication device, or a hacker takes over your account.

Restoring access can be time-consuming, with many affected people reporting that the company’s response takes a long time. If a hacker has changed the email address and phone number associated with your account, it can be very difficult to prove that the account belongs to you.

You may already be asked to submit a video selfie to help the company verify that the account belongs to you. However, manual verification takes some time.

Use facial recognition for instant recovery

What the company is currently testing is an instant recovery option based on facial recognition technology. You’ll be asked to record a few seconds of video while moving your head, similar to registering your face for Face ID, and then be given immediate access.

The demo shown by Meta makes it clear that you can choose between automatic detection and manual verification, so no one has to use it if they don’t want to, and the company states that the data will be deleted once the process is complete.

Once someone uploads a video selfie, it is encrypted and stored securely. It will never be visible on your profile, to friends, or to anyone else on Facebook or Instagram. We immediately delete all facial data generated after this comparison, regardless of whether there is a match or not.

Celebrity Ads Scam

The company also uses the same technology to detect ads that use celebrities’ faces. This flags ads for review, allowing Meta to quickly eliminate scams.

If our systems suspect that an ad may be a scam that contains the image of a public figure at risk of celebrity enticement, we will attempt to use facial recognition technology to identify the faces in the ad Compare the ad with the public figure’s Facebook and Instagram profile pictures. If we confirm a match and determine that the ad is a scam, we will block it.

It is unknown how many accounts currently have access to the testing feature.

Images: Meta