How a Global Platform Simplified Account Recovery for Millions of Users
When users forget their passwords, there’s usually a safety net in place — a phone number or email address where they can be reached, a backup email, a security question, etc. But what happens when none of those are available? For one of the world’s largest digital platforms, that question wasn’t hypothetical. Each year, millions of users hit a dead end when it came to account recovery. Their phone numbers and email addresses had changed. Backup emails were no longer active. Answers to security questions forgotten, or easily guessed by fraudsters. Even the most determined users had no way to prove who they were in order to reclaim their accounts. The company faced a major problem. Recovery had to be secure enough to keep impostors out, but simple enough to let legitimate users back in. Support teams were drowning in requests. Fraud attempts were rising. And in some extreme cases, users even showed up at the company’s offices in person, begging someone to help reset their password. It was time to rebuild the process from the ground up.
When Passwords and Recovery Emails Aren’t Enough
Account recovery sounds straightforward until you scale it. The platform’s previous workflows depended on static signals like saved devices, linked emails, and stored recovery keys. Those signals however, tended to erode over time. People set recovery options when they signed up and then tried to use them years or even decades later, only to find that they had abandoned secondary email accounts, changed phone numbers, or lost their backup codes. When that happens, even legitimate users have no way back into their accounts Even when users reached support, there was little that these reps could do. Manual reviews required time, context, and expertise that didn’t exist at scale. More importantly, giving support teams the power to reset accounts would introduce new risks. A human behind a "reset" button could be tricked, bribed, or coerced, which created an unacceptable vulnerability for a company managing billions of user accounts. To avoid that, most of the process was automated. Automation removed human error, but it couldn’t handle every edge case. At its core, the issue was not technology, It was trust. The company had no way to verify a legitimate user once digital identifiers failed. And as their program manager explained, they didn’t want to collect or store sensitive personal information about users, and they didn’t want to become an identity verification company.
Verifying People, Not Passwords
The platform turned to Proof to pilot a new approach to account recovery based on verified identities rather than legacy workflows. The concept was simple but transformative: instead of asking users to access or remember out-of-date information, the platform would ask users to prove who they were in real time. When a user exhausted standard recovery options, they received a secure, branded link to a Proof-powered recovery page. From there, the user completed a short digital identity check by submitting a government-issued ID and a live selfie. Proof verified the authenticity of the ID, performed a biometric match, and returned a one-time recovery code. The user entered that code back into the platform, confirming the result and restoring access. The entire process took about twelve minutes from start to finish. There was no waiting on manual approval, no uploading sensitive files, and no sharing of identity data with the platform itself. Proof handled verification end to end with built-in fraud detection, audit trails, and configurable decision rules that kept personal data secure while maintaining compliance. The pilot began as a small, controlled test with internal “friends and family” users before scaling further. The program manager received weekly data reviews and quality metrics, while both teams collaborated on refinements such as resolving false failures linked to special characters and global name variations. Each iteration made the system more robust and capable of handling identity diversity at scale.
A New Standard for Digital Recovery
The pilot proved that digital identity verification could close one of the biggest gaps in account management. Within weeks, the platform saw a measurable drop in support escalations, a rise in completed recoveries, and zero fraudulent password resets. Transactions averaged about twelve minutes, with nearly all legitimate users passing verification on their first attempt. The process did more than save time. It helped stop fraud while sending real users right back to their accounts. By verifying a person rather than a password or device, the company could confidently reopen accounts without introducing new risk. The partnership also reduced internal overhead. Support teams no longer had to manually vet recovery claims or balance competing priorities between access and security. Every verification came with a clear pass or fail result, backed by an auditable record. The company’s leadership quickly recognized that this wasn’t just a support solution but a new infrastructure layer for digital trust.
Account recovery is more than a technical problem. It’s where trust and security intersect. Each year, more than 150 million users attempt to reset a password. About ten percent never regain access because they have lost or forgotten their secondary recovery methods. That means as many as fifteen million people are locked out of their accounts forever.
At the same time, the threat landscape has shifted. It used to be that attackers tried to steal user passwords through data breaches or malware. Now, they don’t bother. Instead, they pose as users and simply reset passwords to gain entry. This new exploit targets the recovery process itself, creating an easy path for fraudsters to compromise high-value or high-profile accounts.
For this global company, the shift to identity-based recovery marked a cultural change as much as a technical one. Instead of viewing lost accounts as inevitable, they reframed recovery as an extension of their security and user experience strategy. Proof made that possible by handling the hardest part—the identity check—with speed, privacy, and precision. The platform could protect users without becoming an identity company.
That balance is what modern digital ecosystems demand. People expect security that doesn’t get in their way, and companies need verification that scales. By outsourcing identity verification to Proof, this organization built a recovery process that feels simple to users but is fortified behind the scenes.
Most importantly, it showed what happens when trust becomes programmable. Millions of users now have a recovery path that doesn’t depend on what they can remember at the time, but instead, on who they are.
Recovery is where trust is tested. Proof helps the world’s leading platforms verify real users, stop fraud, and restore access without friction or risk. Learn how Proof can help you close the identity gap.