Facebook Testing A New Security Feature That Asks Users To Upload Selfies

Facebook is currently testing a new security feature that will require users to upload a selfie to verify their identity. The feature appears to be a new type of captcha test so that Facebook could identify that the person logging into their account is real.

The existence of Facebook’s new identity test was first outed by a user on Twitter who shared a screenshot of the active feature. The Facebook app appears to be asking the user to “Upload A Photo Of Yourself” that clearly shows the user’s face. The prompt also said that Facebook will check the photo and then permanently delete it from their servers.

A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to Wired that this is a new security feature that would help them “catch suspicious activity at various points of interaction on the site, including creating an account, sending Friend requests, setting up ads payments, and creating or editing ads.” The spokesperson also said that this process is automated, including checking the photo’s authenticity and identifying suspicious activity.

Facebook is able to tell if a photo is authentic if it is indeed unique. Photos that a user uploads must be an original image that hasn’t been uploaded to Facebook, according to The Verge. When a user uploads a previously uploaded selfie to Facebook to verify his or her identity, the user will be temporarily locked out of his or her account. A message will pop up telling the user that he or she can’t log in right now and that Facebook will “get in touch with you after we’ve reviewed your photo.” The message will also explain that to the user that he or she has been be logged out of his or her account as part of a “security precaution.” Facebook will contact the user within 72 hours.

The Facebook spokesperson noted that the new selfie photo test is one of several methods that Facebook is using to detect suspicious activity. But what exactly is considered by Facebook as suspicious activity? An example of suspicious activity may include a user who consistently posts content from one country and then suddenly starts posting from a different country. Although not really suspicious, a user that has multiple Facebook accounts may also encounter this new security feature.

Facebook didn’t say when it started using this new security feature, but a user on Reddit actually started a thread on this way back in April. Although there are already numerous people that have encountered this new security feature, it is actually still in testing phase. The social media giant didn’t say how widely available this new identity test is, and it also did not disclose its plans of rolling it out to all users worldwide.

This isn’t the first time that Facebook has used photos of its users as part of a new security feature. Earlier this month, Facebook also began testing a new feature that could help eliminate revenge porn from its site. The new feature, which is currently only being tested in Australia, asks users to upload illicit images of themselves to Facebook Messenger so that Facebook’s system will be able to create a digital fingerprint of those photos and prevent it from being uploaded in the future.