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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

Surely manipulating the photo beyond tweaking exposure, white balance, etc. was already banned?

It sounds like they're just taking steps to make it harder to do the already-banned thing. Hell, you can't even fix red-eye in the US:

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/how-app...

> Can I remove red-eye from my photo? No, you can not digitally alter a photo to remove red eye. You will have to submit a new photo without red eye.

View on HN

That's why they will now require you to have your photo taken either at a passport office or at a photographer's. Although the wording in the article is not quite precise on the latter part.

This seems reasonable, as the entity taking the photo is essentially attesting the photo is of you.

I thought they always required a professionally taken photo? In Canada you need to go to a photographer (lots of malls and general stores have one) to take your photos and then stamp and sign them at the back making them eligible for passport submission.

You can take them yourself in the US and print them out, although I think most people don't. I saved about $14 by doing that.

Same here, as long as you have white backdrop (large poster board from an old school project) and are able to crop/print it to the correct dimensions there is no need to get a professional picture. When planning the family vacation, were looking for any ways to cut costs a bit

Same. I had some taken at a local store, and thought they came out terribly. Not worth the money at all. Set up my DSLR in the kitchen on a tripod, digitally placed 2 right-sized copies on a 4x6, and printed them at the drugstore for less than a quarter. I used decent equipment, but a modern phone these days will take an acceptable photo. (In fact, I just searched the iOS App Store at there’s at least a few apps that claim to make acceptable photos.)

Plus, unlike at a photographer's, you can repeat this process in your kitchen 50 times if you want until you get a picture that you're happy with.

German passport photos (until now) could be taken by those photo machines that are all over the place. Australia requires a printed photo that’s most easily taken at a shop but doesn’t have to be.

Disclaimers: it’s been 6 years and 2 years since I’ve had to do this.

Weird. In Sweden its required to have your picture taken by a machine at the police office where you apply for the passport.

Same in Switzerland, alas it's the designated passport office and not a police station.

They have a specially kited photo booth, where you also leave two fingerprints for additional biometric verification.

In order to renew your passport you need to schedule an appointment withyour local passport office.

Last time I renewed, 2013, it took 7 weeks until the earliest available appointment, which was a bit surprising. I'm sure, though, there's an emergency shortcut for a price.

The new passport arrives two days later by mail.

In Finland you can submit your own photo through the internet. All applications are verified by the police so I don't see the issue.

From the article:

> Such manipulation of photos is typically invisible to the human eye, the researchers found.

By the police I do mean the Police, ie not just an individual police person or civilian working for the police. I'm sure they have both automatic testing AND human control.

No you can't. Only a licensed photography studio can do it [1]. You can, however, submit a paper photograph taken by anyone.

[1] https://www.poliisi.fi/passport/passport_photo_instructions

I literally can. Please don't spread misinformation when I doubt you even are a Finn.

https://lupakuvienvastaanotto.fi/Default.aspx

E: not to mention that the page you linked doesn't even say anything about prohibiting self taken photos.

You can register as a photographer very easily. I've been doing my own pics for years now.

You don't even need to register as a photographer (to submit other people's photos). You can do it as an individual just fine, as the submission page directly mentions.

Weird indeed. This is my second reminder today that technology does not spread equally around the globe. The other was hearing my wife ask the IT-guy in her company if they had a fax number for a form from the Italian government.

After having my photo taken at the police office for at least my two latest passports it's somewhat surprising to hear about so many countries still using "the old way". There are such obvious advantages both in security and convenience by having the passport issuer take the photo and the technology is obviously available.

I wondered about that. Hard to imagine any other useful (because lack of quality) use for these. Will they sue, or embed some new firmware with EURION and wireless whatever uplink?

In Australia, the photo has to be signed by a guarantor [1] stating it's an accurate photo. However the guarantor can be any Australian passport holder who's known you for over a year and isn't an immediate relation/partner etc, so it's not particularly fraud proof.

1. https://usa.embassy.gov.au/guarantors

The other part of that is that the original article mentions that often the morphing is not visible to humans, so its possible you can get a morphed image guaranteed just like any other.

Every time I've done this my guarantor hasn't scrutinized the photo, just glanced at it. And ditto when I've been a guarantor: "Hey al you sure you don't want to get a haircut before getting your passport?"

Quite a few Korea & Chinatown will beautify your photos and submit them. The ones I been to will do so without even asking. They've been around for a while.

How does this make any sense as a security measure? Real criminals will always find a photographer who would produce whatever a picture they want and stamp it.

Presumably there is some level of traceability to this. If a falsified photo is found on a document used to commit fraud or other crimes, the photographer who enabled it would be banned, blacklisted, and possibly held criminally liable.

What prevents me from stamping "Walmart at 123 Example Avenue" then scrawling an incomprehensible signature on any photo I want? The stamps the shops use don't have any security features to them.

Unlike the old "guarantor" system where a licensed professional or public official (judge, lawyer, doctor, etc.) had to sign your application - basically, people who the government could verify the existence of and hold accountable - there's not very much traceability to the photo system.

Canada's guarantor system is still in place, although the guarantor currently doesn't have to be a licensed professional.

As an American immigrant to Canada, I don't see the point - the US has never in my lifetime had either a professional photo requirement or a guarantor requirement for its passports, nor even a digital requirement.

Certainly, paying someone like a pharmacy for passport photos is not rare in the US to reduce the risk of out-of-spec photos leading to a rejection. But that's just a common personal choice and not obligatory.

I suspect Canada's guarantor system is inspired by the UK's, though I don't actually know.

You may have found an actual use for blockchain.

I doubt this is going to prevent even a single serious crime.

In New Zealand you can take them yourself and submit them digitally when you apply for renewal online. I did it with my DSLR on its timer, then cropped and converted to JPEG with Krita or Gimp. I believe the new photo is compared to the old one by a person. Maybe our passport office is being a bit naive? It used to require more hoop-jumping though.

Well it ain't for nothing that New Zealand is Mossad's favourite fake passport when assassinating Palestinians in foreign countries. Probably other factors as well tho.

link?

This is the only time they were caught:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Israel%E2%80%93New_Zealan...

But it's safe to say that if they were caught once, they've probably done it numerous times.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepa... Another incident

Cool.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Israel_%E2%80%93_New_Zeal...

I think it's less naive, I trust they're aware of the risks, and more that passport fraud of that sort just doesn't happen on a regular enough basis to require better security. Occasionally a Member of Parliament [0] or foreign intelligence agency [1] has a go, but passport fraud is overall low.

I'm sure they also have automated tools for detecting photo manipulation.

The whole process for getting an NZ passport is an order of magnitude easier than a European passport. Here in Australia I was able complete the entire process online, and they couriered my passport to me from the Sydney consulate. I also have a passport for a European country, and last time I renewed it, I had to make an overnight trip to the consulate and spend half a day getting my passport renewed. I needed to get my photo done by an approved photographer, and they also scanned my fingerprints to store in the passport's chip (they don't store fingerprints for NZ passports).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Garrett_(politician)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_passport#Use_by_Is...

Originally the plan was to only allow taking of passport photos at local government citizen services offices (which is where passport applications occur). Photographers successfully made the case that this destroys their businesses (usually 30-40 percent of revenue). It appears that now photographers must digitally upload the photo to a government website. Details on that are still unknown.

This article (in German) is pretty good.

https://www.golem.de/news/foto-morphing-regierung-macht-digi...

The photographer business is 40% passport photos?

That seems unlikely, so I think I misunderstood,could you expand?

It‘s true - passports get invalid after 10 years here. I translated this source [1]:

„The photographers in Ingolstadt and the surrounding area also take a critical view of the idea of the Gerolfingen Minister of the Interior. Very critically. An adjective that keeps coming up: threatening his very existence. Theresia Häusler from Foto Porst Am Stein says: "We take 20 to 40 passport photos per day." At normal market prices of between 15 and 20 euros for the pictures, you can work out what the loss of revenue per day is. Up to 50 percent of the revenues could be lost in your branch, says Häusler“

I mean, you don't really need these businesses nowadays that much. Just take a picture with your phone, no need to develop it.

[1]: https://www.donaukurier.de/lokales/ingolstadt/Existenzbedroh... (German)

Almost every photographer that hasn't specialised into a certain area does passport photos. They usually have a always-ready booth setup in their shop to take those kinds of photos. ID cards/passports are required to have and are valid for 10 years, so even in a small 1000-people town it can easily amount to about 1-2 passports a week (which usually costs around 10€-20€). If you cover any type of larger area that can easily cover most of your photography business costs.

but couldn't you take passport photos from the small automatic photo boots that are available in shopping malls or train/bus stations and such?

People still want to look good in their ID photos.

There's a EU-wide standard for passport photos. Your head has to be properly aligned within a specific frame. You must not show any facial expression. The lighting must eliminate shadows and "shiny" spots.

Regular automatic booths do not check for all those issues. Sure, you can probably create a booth that handles them, but then you will probably also start charging as much as the photographer. And its a one in 5 years affair, so why bother going to a booth?

I did my Irish passport photo on my phone.

Passport pictures are unreasonably expensive here in Finland. Luckily you can register as a photographer for passport pics with the police, and do your own. I've been doing my own, and some for friends, for many years now. The last time I paid for one (probably 13 years ago or so), it was upwards of 20Eur

You can register, but you don't even need to. The submission page allows you to say that you are an individual.

But that's exactly what this new German law wants to prohibit, people being able to shoot their own passport photos.

Now, how difficult would it be for someone with enough criminal energy to forge passport photos to beomce a registered photographer who's allowed to "securely" upload passport pics?

The context is Finland in these comments.

Currently you can bring your own picture which makes it possible to do certain modifications beforehand.

Possible, yes. Permitted, no.

The "photographer submits via a secure form" approach detailed in the article leaves this loophole pretty open, too, unless the photographers have to go through some kinds of security clearance vetting to get access.

> unless the photographers have to go through some kinds of security clearance vetting to get access.

Passport picture photographers will need a license in Germany.

The blackmarket is very much alive and well in Germany, allowing photographers to verify anything is silly, they can be bribed. :x

In fact when I lived in Austria, within a couple months I had access to more black market goods/services then I did after growing up in the US for 25 years. I would imagine Germany is the same.

What do you mean by this? What kind of black market goods did you have access to?

Given location and user name, probably milk.

Seem sketchy, given

> after growing up in the US for 25 years

and the average lifespan of the species being 12-15 years.

I don't know about Austria bit there is a healthy market in Sweden for anything which is heavily taxed - mainly alcohol, cigarettes.

Alcohol and cigarettes are always on the black market close to US military bases. Prices are always cheaper for service members and their family on base.

Databases of credit card numbers on USB sticks, etc

The point isn't that they can be bribed, it's that the photographer has to attach their name to the photo and certify that it hasn't been altered or tampered with. It adds the ability to go after the photographer if they gov't ever discovers tampering has been done.

New business model. Pop-up photoshop. Like the countless other businesses popping up, operating for a few months, washing money, closing down, owners gone, employees unknown, and so on.

Except it takes a while to start a business in Germany and there is lots of paperwork involved. Also it sounds like licensing is required to be able to take passport photos. Chances are that licensing might apply to both the business and the individual photographer.

This is also where it is important to point out German culture.

Germans are extremely law abiding and rule following. People are also generally worried breaking social norms.

So while it is technically possible for photographers to digitally alter photos before upload, there will be very few who would dare to do that.

Photographers rely on the revenue from passport photos for their businesses to survive. Initially the plan was to exclude professional photographers too but the government backtracked on that after outcry.

The blackmarket is obviously bigger outside of the US where US law and enforcement will be encouraged to go after blackmarkets more strongly than another company.

Not really: a paper trail and a process that requires the photographer to be knowingly and provably complicit would already create a pretty high barrier. Not an insurmountably high barrier, but no amount of vetting could.

When I got my first drivers license (Germany) the photographer actually digitally removed some moles from my face and did other editing to make the picture appear more good looking. I was a bit baffled as the picture is supposed to identify me but didn't say anything. Since then I always take ID-pictures in a photo booth. It really doesn't need a professional to take an acceptable picture.

I could imagine a photo booth outputting a digital copy of the picture with signature so it is clear to the registration office that the picture has not been meddled with.

Or that the photograph of the large photograph the booth took a picture of has not been meddled with.

Is there some sort of camera fingerprinting technology out there, then, that distinguishes between processing done on the camera vs. post-processing in software? If not, how are we even going to tell, short of having signed files coming off the chip?

Makes it possible or makes it legal?

We developers sometimes struggle with the distinction. The point of laws and regulations is usually not to make fraud technically impossible, but increase the cost and/or risk of getting caught. People still use locks on doors even though they are easy to pick.

I could use some CGAN scripts to make a picture of me, which - to your eyes and mine, looks like me - but nevertheless does not have my official physical metrics, and thus I could pre-dispose future AI against recognizing me.

I could. But, I won't any more, because Germany will make life a hassle for me.

We already have face recognition AI using passport photos by the UK border control. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPassport_gates

I've tried one of these scripts. They were pretty poor. The best one was Zuck's profile pic which already looks like deep fake...

> No, you can not digitally alter a photo to remove red eye. You will have to submit a new photo without red eye.

What if the camera does that automatically without you knowing? Technically that still is "digitally alter a photo to remove red eye" (by the way there is no such thing as an unaltered digital photo). What if the camera lets you know it does and offers to turn that off - should you? What if an import script (which fires as you plug your camera/card) on your PC does that without you knowing? What if you know it's there? How does the result of any of these scenarios considered different from just doing that in Photoshop?

When I last got my Australian passport renewed, the guy in front of me had his photo rejected because it had been edited. They had some sort of automated analysis that I presume worked off spotting weird JPEG aliasing.

If there are signs it's edited, they'll tell you to come back with a different photo. (In this case, there was a photo shop a block away they had an arrangement with.)

Presumably that would only work if you hand over the digital photo. Converting it to analog (printing it) would lose all this data. You could then also rescan from the analog and receive a clear jpeg that should pass most tests depending on how good your scan was.

You submit physical photos, which Australia is insanely picky over. My most recent renewal took me three tries across three separate camera stores before I found pictures they were happy with.

The review process seems to be manual as far as I could tell, or at least it took O(days) each time for the results to come back.

These were analog photos. The scan came up on the screen and highlighted edges where the photo had been tweaked.

The camera would rather preflash a little bit to narrow your pupils, and then take the picture an instant after that preflash.

Huh, I took my own passport photo, adjusted the colors, fixed some red eye and even touched up some blemishes and dark circles under my eyes. Why make a rule if you have absolutely zero intent or ability to enforce it?

I did the same thing, and it's obvious they know people are going to do it. So why make the rule? I suspect it is so that you can't argue about whether it is or isn't touched up too much if they don't happen to like it. If they can show any touching up at all, they can drop the hammer on you.

Selective enforcement. If everything is illegal then you can enforce the laws however you like.

Yeah they were always quite intense w/ German passports anyway. And the tech seems quite sensitive.