The Private ID selfie photo age verification might be the fastest way to verify your age for your Google account. After going through the process myself to get access to the Google’s relatively new project – NotebookLM, I’m ready to show you what it looks like step-by-step, and address the privacy concerns you might have if you’ve found your way here. Let’s cut to the chase.
An Additional Way To Verify Your Age on Your Google Account
Among the three methods of Google account age verification available in most countries and regions, which include the government-issued ID verification and the credit card verification, is the Private ID photo age verification which involves taking a photo of your face for the purpose of estimating your real age using the image data. The verification is done by Google’s partner company – Private ID.
Once you decide to click on the Take a selfie button in the verification method selection menu, you will be directed to another menu you can see on the image here.
This tells us quite a few things. First, that the verification will be carried out by the Google’s partner, Private ID (more on that later).
Second, that Private ID will only share the age estimation results with Google, and your selfie won’t. In fact, it will get deleted right after the verification is complete, and as stated in one of the next steps, “no images will leave your device”.
Third, we learn that should the verification be successful, it will be instant.
How Does It Work Step-by-Step? – What You’ll Be Asked To Do
Here is how the whole Private ID selfie age verification process goes step-by-step. If you’re initiating it using your computer, it’s a 2-stage process that involves using your smartphone or other mobile device featuring a front camera.
Step 1 – Accepting the Terms and Conditions
The first screen you’ll see will prompt you to accept the TOS of the third-party responsible for the verification process (Private ID).
This window also provides quite a few links, the first one leading to a quick explainer on how the verification process works, and two others to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use of the Age Estimation Service you are about to use.
After clicking the “Agree and continue” button you will be taken to another screen, which won’t initiate the verification process just yet.
Step 2 – Continuing the Verification Process on Your Mobile Device
At this point you will have to continue the process on your mobile device featuring a front camera. In most cases this will be your smartphone.
To do this, you either need to scan the supplied QR code (blurred on the image above) using your mobile device’s camera app, or type in or copy over a custom URL into your chosen web browser app. Once you move to the destination page, the verification process will start.
Step 3 – Taking a Photo of Your Face
The verification will begin instantly and given good lighting conditions the web app will very quickly automatically register the image of your face without asking you to take the photo yourself, which certainly took me by surprise.
In fact, if you don’t know that the web app will start scanning your face the instant it gets into frame, you might not even notice that the verification took place before you see the final confirmation window.
After that, your age will be verified right away without you needing to wait or do anything else. That is, if the process finishes successfully.
How Private Is It Really? – Who Handles The Process?
Private Identity LLC is a company developing and maintaining Cloud Biometric Identity as a Service (IDaaS) solutions based in Concord Massachusetts, which is responsible for the Google’s selfie age verification system we’re talking about here.
Founded in the year 2017, currently with 11-50 employees and 14 associated members, they work in the wide field of user onboarding and connected authentication and encryption technologies, as mentioned on their official LinkedIn profile.
They are partnered with a few large brands such as Google and Amazon AWS, as shown here, and according to their website, among other things, specialize in homomorphic encryption commonly used in privacy-preserving biometric authentication systems, which is essentially a way to perform computations on encrypted data without needing to decrypt it in the first place.
This technology is used in the process of verifying your age using a selfie, or rather, its encrypted and anonymized data sent over to the Private ID servers during the verification process.
So, do the Verification Selfies Leave Your Device at Any Point?
The Google’s photo age verification process makes use of the aforementioned homomorphic encryption technology. First of the guidance windows that appear during the process (shown above) states that the actual pictures of your face never leave your device.
This is because, by the nature of the process, the encrypted image data should be the only thing that gets sent over to Private ID for the purpose of age estimation, which takes place over on their servers. At least that’s the basic idea behind the FHE methodology described in much more detail here.
The photos of your likeness are said to never be saved or shared with anyone, and the only thing that Google is supposed to receive after the age estimation process finishes, are its direct results.
As always, when it comes to online privacy, it ultimately comes down to trusting the parties involved. Fortunately, if you prefer not to use Private ID verification to confirm your age, there are two more alternative options available to you.
What Other Alternative Options Do You Have?
As mentioned before, the other two options left if you don’t want to take a picture of your likeness to verify your age and get access to more Google services are as follows:
- Using your ID, driver’s license or passport – This is perhaps the most popular way of age verification, and it requires you to take clear pictures of your government-issued ID or other compatible document confirming your age and send it over to Google using a special form. This method, compared to the two other ones, can take a little bit more time, both because of the time you need to take the photos of your documents, and the additional waiting time until your ID gets verified on Google’s side.
- Using your credit card – After supplying your credit card data, Google will use it to confirm your age without any additional charges to your bank account. In this case, most of the time the verification should be a matter of a few minutes total. Note that debit cards won’t work here.
Besides the selfie age verification, these are all the methods available if you want to confirm that you’re account is eligible to access features available only for users that are aged 18 years, or older.
Is Using the Google’s Photo Age Verification Method Worth It?
In all honesty, as I have already said, the Private ID photo age verification process seems to be the fastest one of the thee methods proposed by Google.
From start to finish it can take as little as 30 seconds from starting the process up to a successful verification of your account.
If you’re one of the people that can put enough trust in Google’s partner companies like Private ID with your data, go for it. After testing it out I must say, while it was a little surprising how fast the process went by, it really was convenient.