# Account recovery
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# Use case
Your end-user has lost access to your mobile app. This can happen if:
- The app has been deleted from the device.
- Your end-user has lost their device or obtained a new one.
- The old device has stopped working.
You want to easily recover this end-user to a new installation of the app, so that they can get access to your services again.
The account recovery has to be secure whilst still offering a positive and seamless user experience, and avoid the additional cost of having the end-user go through a full onboarding again.
# How it works
Meet Jane, one of your active end-users who has activated MobileID in your mobile app.
- Jane loses her device on a boat trip, and therefore has to buy a new device.
- Jane installs all of her favourite apps from a cloud backup, including your app.
- Jane opens your app for the first time on the new device.
- Your app welcomes Jane back, and asks her to authenticate so that she can recover her account on the new device.
- Jane performs a Face Authentication in your app.
- Jane activates new credentials by selecting a new PIN code and enables biometrics. Jane can use these credentials to authenticate and authorise future operations.
Success!
Jane has now securely recovered her account, and can now access your services on the new device.
Why Face Authentication instead of Face ID?
In some use cases, native biometrics such as Face ID will not work, and so server-side biometrics such as Face Authentication can be leveraged instead.
You can read about the differences between Face ID and Face Authentication in our feature documentation.
# What it looks like
The following diagram illustrates what it could look like to perform an account recovery with MobileID, from the perspective of your end-users.
# Implementation
To recover your end-users with 2FA, you have to implement our account recovery feature.
Learn more
You can read more about account recovery in our MobileID feature documentation.
# Account recovery with Face Authentication
Later in 2023, we will extend our account recovery feature to support Face Authentication as the second authentication factor, replacing the recovery code.
With this improvement, your end-users can perform an account recovery for your services by doing a two-factor authentication; using their possession of a cloud backup and face biometrics as the two factors.
# Get access
Feature coming soon
Our Face Authentication feature is coming soon. To get early access, you can contact us at support@signicat.com.