Google tests a CAPTCHA requiring you to turn on your camera and wave
To prove you are human, you would need to activate your camera and gesture in front of the lens. The help page is already prepared. It's another step towards normalising the surrender of biometric data to use a service.
Google is testing a CAPTCHA feature where, to pass it, you will need to turn on your camera and wave in front of the lens. Seriously: they even have the help page ready. The idea that to prove you are human you must show your face and make a gesture at the camera deserves critical scrutiny before we become accustomed to it.
A CAPTCHA is the test that separates humans from automated programmes. So far, it has involved recognising images, ticking a box, or solving a small puzzle. Moving to a gesture in front of the camera changes the nature of the test: it involves activating image-capture hardware and potentially processing facial and bodily features. Even if the company assures that it stores nothing, the mere fact of normalising a website opening your camera to let you in marks a significant step.
The underlying risk is not so much this specific feature as the mechanism of acclimatisation. They are quite successful in slipping things into the population's domain: a function that seems excessive today, if deployed gradually and presented as a convenience or a security improvement, quickly becomes normal. The shift from an anonymous interaction (ticking a box) to a biometric one (appearing on camera) is exactly the type of change that deserves scrutiny while it is still in testing and not a standard.
Hopefully, those who think they won't succeed are right, and they won’t manage to make us all accustomed to it. But experience shows that these transitions, when done slowly, often succeed. That's why it's worth highlighting them at the outset: today's convenience is often tomorrow's normalised surveillance.
Therefore, it's worth rejecting from the start tests that demand more than necessary. Verifying someone's humanity should not require their face or a recorded gesture: there are ways to do this that do not involve opening the camera, and these should be the ones that become standard.