The Facebook Photo Verification Debacle
Posted by Matthew Loop | 14 Comments
A few months ago Facebook instituted a new photo verification procedure as a way to further protect the privacy of its users. Unfortunately, this didn’t really turn to be as seamless as what may have been planned.
In fact, it’s become a royal pain especially if you travel frequently, try and access Facebook from a different IP or public computer, and have more than a few hundred friends. Here’s a short video I put together that explains a bit more.
This is typically the notice you get when you’re about to go through the Facebook photo verification process:
Your account was recently accessed from a location we’re not familiar with. For your protection, please review your recent activity to make sure no one is using your Facebook account without permission.
Reviewing your activity takes just a few moments. We’ll start by asking you a couple of questions to confirm that this is your account. (If we recognize your computer, you’ll be able to skip this step.)
Afterward, you’ll go through a security check, be asked a few questions, then onto photo verification to try and gain access to your account. Distant location access within short periods of time is supposedly the main trigger, according to Facebook.
As someone that travels quite a bit, this is very annoying. I have several thousand friends on Facebook and if I enter the wrong name for one of the images that they pull, they lock the account! Heck, I have friends that are having problems and they have less than 100 friends.
Facebook is a networking platform where one of the things you do is meet new people and be SOCIAL. I would imagine it’s fairly common to meet someone online and not remember their name the next day. With that in mind, it would be a better idea to (like some bloggers have suggested) have photo recognition software combined with only asking you to identify people that you’ve been TAGGED in photos with.
What do you think? Have you ever had problems with Facebooks new photo verification process?
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About the Author
Matthew Loop is an author, speaker, investor, philanthropist, and the highest paid social media revenue strategist in North America. He helps brands, startups, and small business owners multiply their influence, impact, and income by harnessing the power of the Internet. Since 2005 he’s trained over 21,000 clients in 25 countries. Millions have viewed his free business growth tutorials online. Connect with him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Matt, this has been very cumbersome for us at times. The last encounter with photo verification drove my staff nuts for 3 weeks. The entire process seemed absurd. Dealing with “support” from FB is not even an option.
This entire thing, along with an early ‘slap” as NeuropathyDR growth exploded, emphasized the need for multiple ways of reaching and maintaining contact with our people, which is why anything with content in our businesses is set up multiple places, video, articles, multiple opt-in points etc. and especially on great blogs, just like this.
Agreed, John … it’s critically important to be on multiple channels. Facebook totally dropped the ball on this one.
Interesting……Facebook has this “Experiment First, Ask Questions Later” attitude. Seems like when they implement changes to the site, good or bad, there is some backlash and then they have to rethink their actions. Would make sense to poll users who use Facebook regularly before implementing these kind of changes.
So true, Samuel… Looks like they’re taking lessons from Google!
FB is like God..it is amazing the domination of FB.
Very good blog post Matt.
With all of the nonsense going on with Google Adwords accounts (i.e. bannings, being turned off) this is very timely info for docs using Facebook.
Great stuff!
Todd 🙂
Thanks, Todd… Let’s hope Facebook doesn’t bite the hand that feeds them like Google has done.
Facebook and Youtube have been banned in Pakistan and other countries:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-05-20-pakistan-internet_N.htm
The story is evolving. But, it seems as the internet spreads around the globe the virtual web will continue to mirror the drama unfolding in the real world.
Perhaps a solution is to use your travel laptop to remotely access your home computer with a remote desktop program. the IP occurs from your home and should circumvent some of these troubles. This would work for tasks that are not computer speed intensive.
Amazing … Governments / religions that oppress and censor in this way are horrible and definitely all about controlling the masses. Reminds me of the dark ages…
Good suggestion on remote access, Joseph 🙂
Just another example of how little Facebook cares about accessibility. As a totally blind person there is no way I would be able to get past such verification requirements without sighted assistance. (And possibly not even with that.) Gosh, this is just one more good reason NOT to have a Facebook account. Blatant discrimination against blind/vi users.
You’re right, Jason… It’s total discrimination. I didn’t even think of the visually impaired perspective until you pointed it out. Thank you for sharing!
I also experienced that and its really sucks I am not familiar to those pictures of my friends and whats happen to me is I cant open my facebook account in a week. i hope they will not do it anymore
Thanks for posting this Matthew. I have been locked out and cannot verify the pictures. I did try to go through the process of identifying them and what a Joke. Some of the pictures show the friends dog, and one time is what like their class picture with a few hundred people and the friends face was so small i couldn’t even tell who i was identifying. Very frustrating. I hope the Facebook Engineers realize what a screw up this was.
NOW you don’t get multiple choice for naming pics, and no phone verification either! received this email, actually two, a different ID was on the other: Facebook’s automated systems recently restricted your personal account from creating new applications. We are writing on behalf of the Facebook Platform team to let you know that any applications that were under your sole control as a developer have been disabled as a precautionary measure, which include: betsyshinnick61387 (ID #334905783304960)
If your account is disabled, please note that the Platform team cannot re-enable your account. To find out more about your disabled account, please visit this page of our Facebook Help Center