Facebook Implements Social Captchas For Data Downloads

Along with the barrage of news today, Facebook’s CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg said that the social network will start implementing a “social captcha,” to verify identities of members if they are logging on from different places. Specifically, he said that members would have to answer questions about their friends or identify them in a picture to download your data from Facebook.

Apparently, when you choose to “Download Your Information” from your account settings, Facebook will implement the Captcha. Facebook actually filed a patent for social captchas back in September.

However, it’s hard to know how secure the captchas will be until we see an actual implementation for data downloads. The Social Captcha has a number of other use cases, including password recovery. The idea is definitely interesting and probably welcome to some, considering the amusing Captcha-fails we always see.

Photo Credit/Flickr/FredMikeRudy