Slow hand clap for #Linkedin who've locked me out of my account until I can prove who I am, except I can't because their third party face recog provider is unusable if you can't look directly at the camera - and all because I changed my password and disabled a bunch more of the personal data leaching settings I found when I went looking.
Aug 19, 2025, 7:08 AM@tink good to have you here instead.
@stereo Thank you Ralf 😊
Aug 19, 2025, 7:13 AM@tink uggghhhh. Grim. I hate that LinkedIn does kind of remain some form of useful. Is there any way I can help from within?
@sarajw Thanks Sara. I appreciate the offer. Immediate plan is to borrow some sighted help to see if I can get through the verification, but if you have any contact with whomever is responsible for the face recog feature (or commissioning it), you could let them know it's problematic 😊
Aug 19, 2025, 8:06 AM@tink I don't work there (sorry, my words could totally give that impression) so sadly not - just wondered if there was anything I could do as someone who isn't locked out.
Definitely problematic!
@sarajw Ah! I did wonder when I read your message but figured you must have found a new gig. Thanks for clarifying! The sighted assistance seems to have done the trick at any rate.
Aug 19, 2025, 9:25 AM@tink glad you're sorted, at least for now :)
May I ask, did you manage to get the face recog to work or was there another way?
@sarajw I did with sighted help from someone who could give me useful instructions as I was doing it, and who could also take the photo of my ID properly lined-up, corners showing etc. Sadly though, Linkedin still don't believe I'm me, so now I have to do it all again.
Aug 19, 2025, 11:21 AM@tink Oh god, I'm so sorry. What a mess.
@tink That's interesting. I got locked out of my LinkedIn a few months ago and was surprised how easy the ID verification was, at least in terms of it giving me instructions on positioning the camera for capturing my ID and selfie. I don't think I had the option for facial age estimation which seems to be something these providers are pushing now. I wonder if it has changed though, would be a shame if it has regressed.
@robbiec12345 I'm glad it worked for you. It did give me instructions like "look slightly left", but for a while I thought that meant look slightly left, not turn your head slightly to the left, and even then I must have tried for 15 minutes before I gave up. Onwards!
@tink I hate it so much that the best way to get stupid issues like this fixed is to know someone who ‘works there’. That goes for a lot of companies’ websites unfortunately. If I can help, like Sara, I’m just a bystander but would love to help
@Anneke Thank you! This is so true. I do know someone who works there but I'll hold-off making it their problem for a while yet.
Aug 19, 2025, 12:04 PM@tink somewhat pathetically, I've just written a normal feed post tagging LinkedIn from inside LinkedIn, asking for them to reinstate your account.
I wasn't going to, and it will very likely not do anything, but I was very bothered that I was not able to search you up at all, couldn't find you via the Tetralogical page either.
@tink @sarajw @Anneke They are empowering you to achieve more. Not being on LinkedIn allows you to achieve ne'er seen before heights of cooking, reading and generally living your life :P /s
Nah but seriously this is such an annoying situation to be in, I ran into it with Wise a few years ago and it took over a month to find "a person with specialized training" to hop on a zoom call with me and compare my ID to my face. Building a system this bad takes effort
Aug 19, 2025, 4:01 PMAug 20, 2025, 5:04 AM@tink your account is there again! Are you now able to get in?
@sarajw Oh! So it is! I'm back in - with thanks to Jennison Asuncion, who reached out and alerted the team at Linkedin that deals with this kind of thing - and also to you for your help! 😊
Aug 20, 2025, 8:31 AM@tink Ah you're very welcome!
@tink I think Reddit uses a similar (if not the same) provider. Reddit asks you to look directly into the camera, then turn left and right. Worse, you have to move your head back and forth until it fits into an outline drawn on the screen.
@eatyourgreens @tink look, if you don't do it, a child might get subjected to porn or worse ... information about smoking/alcohol/sexuality/palestine ...
@patrick_h_lauke @tink why don’t they just ask you to hold up a card with your name and number, and get the whole mugshot process over with.
@eatyourgreens @tink i've emailed Kier, asking him to make porn come on my computer. will let you know how that goes...
@patrick_h_lauke @tink I think you need to let Keir “back door your computer” (fnarr fnarr.)
@eatyourgreens Yes, that sounds horribly like it. Classic case of not including PWD in their usability testing I suspect.
@tink the issue of internet authentication is unthinkably messed up when you consider that state id is pretty reliable and has been around for yonks, and would mostly work in a networked environment