Facebook has started a new form of verification, using selfies to determine if registered users are real people or just bots.

While still in its beta stage, the automated photo verification process is currently been tested on a small number of users and involves checking if uploaded photos are unique.

“Please upload a photo of yourself that clearly shows your face,” the message reads. Facebook says it would verify the photo and then “permanently delete it from our servers”. A certain user @flexlibris said that her friend received the request from Facebook before they could access the account, and shared a screenshot.

“Facebook is now locking users out of account features, and then demanding that those users ‘verify’ their account to get back in by scanning an image of their face,” she tweeted.

“I started by uploading pictures that had already been taken, then took a couple of myself. Every time it says the picture is invalid.” said a Reddit user, as quite a number of perplexed users have resorted to reporting Facebook for locking them out of their account without uploading a photo around April.

“I just discovered the same problem. I don't even post anything to Facebook ... so I don't know how my picture would help,” wrote another Reddit user.

The automated photo verification process—which requires users to pass a simple test to determine that they're humans and not spam bots, is somewhat similar to the popular CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) challenge.

A spokesperson from Facebook said they may require users to prove they're real people “when our systems detect suspicious activity”.

“One way we do this is to ask the account owner to upload a picture of himself or herself, which we’ll check and then permanently delete from our servers.”

“Our abuse-fighting team builds and constantly updates a combination of automated and manual systems that help us catch suspicious activity at various points of interaction on the site, including creating an account, sending Friend requests, setting up ads payments, and creating or editing ads.” They continued.

While online photography mediums are growing, there are rules guiding each one, but then selfie lovers can safely view and share milf nude selfies on certain websites without it being flagged as illegal.

In October, Facebook, in a bid to curb revenge porn began requesting users to send them nude photos and videos of themselves.