Can you smuggle data in an ID card photo? | Hacker News Reader

Can you smuggle data in an ID card photo?

informatykzakladowy.pl

28 pointsedent9 comments

One thing to consider is that if you were to succeed in placing hidden text/image on an ID card, it may fail manual forgery checks at airports and police stations. One of the many ways IDs are checked is with different types of lighting[1]. This might have made this stand out as an artifact, which could result in an officer doubting its legitimacy.

[1] https://www.airport-suppliers.com/supplier-press-release/the...

Google translated to English: https://informatykzakladowy-pl.translate.goog/pierwszy-na-sw...

In Germany there is a discussion about only allowing approved photographers for passport photos and them sending the pictures directly to the authorities.

They are also very picky about the images here. When I got a new passport recently they investigated my images thoroughly with a magnifying glass and almost rejected them because of a few white pixels you could not see with the naked eye. Only when they saw that the pixels were different between multiple copies they conclude that it was probably a printer issue and found one copy that had almost none which they accepted.

I think authorities are well aware of the risk mentioned in the article here.

> In Germany there is a discussion

The discussion concluded with it being codified into law. How it's gonna work apparently is that the image will be stored E2E-encrypted in the cloud and at the photographer you'll get a barcode that contains the URL to the image and the key to decrypt it. To upload the image into the cloud, the photographer will need to use a secure ID card to sign in.

https://www.bsi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/BSI/Publikat...

Was kinda interested in building software for this, but it feels like you need to pay a lot of people for fancy audits.

France has already got something similar: the e-photo. https://refugies.info/en/procedure/63528e00976acb4f7bcd37ad

In Switzerland we're one step ahead: ID photos get taken at the counter where they're issued.

You get 2, 3 takes and pick the best. Efficient and secure.

Very cool discussion and ideas. A true HN article. Need to translate though - unless of course you are Polish.

This reminds me of Nico Alm who was wearing a colander as hat on his picture of his passport. He argued that religious hats are allowed and he is a pastafari :-)

Why use the most often scanned and scrutinized item in your inventory? Why not a family photo in your wallet or a fake discount card?

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