As it turned out, it would not be quick at all. If I hadn’t been a journalist with such contacts, I’m not sure what I would have done, but I had them and I used them hoping to resolve this quickly. I was at an impasse and not sure what to do, but use my contacts as a journalist. There was nothing in the email about any recourse. I’m not sure how many ways you have to identify yourself to satisfy Google, but apparently all the ways I had supplied weren’t enough. I followed the procedure, waited for several days (a lifetime without access to my email, calendar, documents) and I was told I was rejected. I was told I was locked out and I would have to make a request to Google to get in. I got to the end of the process expecting to be asked for a new password. I have no idea to be honest and it’s kind of a weird security requirement because seriously, who is going to remember when they opened their Google account to the month if it was over a decade ago? It’s not information people typically keep. I was asked when I first opened my account. I was asked to enter the most recent password I remembered. I had supplied, not one, not two, but three factors of identification, but this was not enough for Google for some reason. I answered it.Īt that point, you would think I had done more than enough to prove that I was who I said I was. I was asked to answer a security question. I responded and was asked to send a confirmation code to my email. I was asked to send a confirmation to my phone they had on file. I clicked ‘Forgot Password’ as I always had. I use different passwords all the time and I forgot which one I had used most recently for Google. Then imagine that one day, you get locked out after forgetting your password.Ībout a month ago, I went to sign into Google. You rely on their mail and calendar, Google Drive for storage and Google Photos for your photo archive. Imagine you have spent much of your digital life for the last 12 years on Google. When you lose your password, it’s not that simple - as I found out. If you think back to earlier times where, say you lost your bank book, your local banker probably knew who you were and could help you navigate the process of getting it replaced. How much of your digital life would you lose if you lost a single password? Without it, you are locked out and the cold reality of using free cloud services like Google is that you don’t have a human arbiter to help you.
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