[GUI-Talk] suspicion about increasing frequency of unwarranted security lockouts

[Doug Lee]

The Instacart lock-out happened to me once recently when I suddenly used
a computer I hadn't ordered from in many months to submit a large order,
coincidentally in the same month that I had made a change to my account
credentials. I got a customer service number from Google AI, called,
explained my situation, and got my account fixed without uploading
anything.

On Thu, Jul 02, 2026 at 12:26:15PM -0500, Bruce Naccari via GUI-Talk wrote:
   Pardon me if this has already been discussed while I was not paying
   attention--and be aware I am pretty much a techignoramus so I might
   say something that  betrays that ignorance  to y'all. (:
   In the past coupla months I have had too many instances of being locked
   out of accounts and put through many hoops to get access to the
   accounts restored.Most annoyingly this has been happening with google
   and with instacart.
   Important points:
   1. This did not use to happen.
   2. The companies say I am being locked out  for my protection because
   they detected"unusual activity" etc.BUT
   3.It is only happening  at times when I know it was truly me engaging
   in the activities,on the same device, at the same location,on the same
   home wireless network,going through the same Cox isp modem,and almost
   always on the same browser
    Never because of something happending when I am not interacting with
   them. Obviously since nothing has changed with me and my "habits"
   something  very inconveniently and annoyingly different is happening
   "inside" google and instacart,and an obvious thing is that in what a
   user/consumer can see  they are expanding the  areas pervaded by
   AI,which I assume is frequently if not constantly changing ,and that no
   doubt includes inside their security--while all is the same on my side.
   I suspect that as their AI security is changed or evolves they are not
   keeping up with training it to recognize my normal use of my updated
   JAWS screenreadig software.
   Is this a problem for others?Are the NFB folk who interact with these
   megacorps on accessibility  aware of this problem,if I am right in my
   suspicion?
   Me, I am not just a tech ignoramus but also an old gaffer who  gets
   "nervous"with close finger work on a small screen so I am not very good
   or comfortable using my apple smart phone so almost always use my
   laptop and Windows and JAWS. When instacart locks me out they want each
   time to be sent a photo of my credit card, ID etc. and in my imperfect
    competence I have had  to meet their demand fast to ask my son to help
   me properly photograpsh these things  and upload them to
   instacart.Thanks for any info or insights.Best, BEN



-- 
Doug Lee   http://www.dlee.org
"The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them
to choose from." -- Andrew Tanenbaum