Google wants all of its users to add a second step to authenticate their logins and it's ready to impose this security hurdle on as many people as possible at once. The company has announced that it'll do just that sometime soon.
Specifically, it wants to apply two-step verification or 2SV to new Google logins with the second step being a yes/no prompt that pops up on a phone already associated with an account. This screen will include information about the device attempting access and its approximated location.
If you've registered a phone on your Google account and don't already receive those prompts, expect them to come soon:
Today we ask people who have enrolled in two-step verification (2SV) to confirm it’s really them with a simple tap via a Google prompt on their phone whenever they sign in. Soon we’ll start automatically enrolling users in 2SV if their accounts are appropriately configured. (You can check the status of your account in our Security Checkup). Using their mobile device to sign in gives people a safer and more secure authentication experience than passwords alone.
When that happens, expect the yes/no prompts to appear on every phone or tablet logged into your Google account. If you don't want them emerging on a device your kids have access to, you'll need to log off on that device. Fortunately, that can be easily done through Google's Security Checkup feature. There are also alternate second steps you can default to like putting in a code from an authenticator app which, again, you can set in Security Checkup.
And if you don't have a mobile device linked to your Google account... well, this is just a passing breeze.