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Comment by verst | Hacker News Reader

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...

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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.

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