Security News > 2024 > July > Selfie-based authentication raises eyebrows among infosec experts

The use of selfies to verify identity online is an emerging trend in some parts of the world since the pandemic forced more business to go digital.

Local media has weighed in to suggest that selfies will not improve security.

Late last month, US cyber security firm Resecurity flagged similar concerns when it found a spike in leaked identity documents containing selfies of Singaporeans on the dark web.

"Using selfies for identity verification has been growing steadily for around the last five years, but the inflection point was during the pandemic when people were forced to engage digitally," VP analyst at Gartner, Akif Khan, told The Register.

At other times, it's the organization that collected and managed the selfie that is at fault.

"Getting a selfie for KYC purposes is not a problem on its own - the problem is that this data is not properly handled and in many cases is never discarded after the verification is complete," Reed told The Reg.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/08/selfie_authentication_security/