
Why smiling in your passport photo is forbidden - nsaparanoid
http://travel.stackexchange.com/q/11534/101
======
Nanzikambe
The reasoning is dumb, and the concept easily subject to abuse.

If you're good at contorting your face for an extended period of time,
including whilst you speak, do so for your passport photograph. Think Mr Bean
or EmotionEric / [http://emotioneric.com](http://emotioneric.com)

Why would you do this?

Well I did this for my passport for several reasons, foremost being I detest
the idea of facial recognition, it's an invasion of my privacy and my right to
digital anonymity. For the same reason I don't have a facebook page, ask
friends never to tag me in images and generally avoid photographs. Secondly
because passports are archaic hangovers for an era long gone. When I travel
(and I do so a fair amount) I only need my ID card to do so and mine uses a
picture of me, so old and of such bad quality it's practically useless.

It's a small amusement, and when I've actually needed to use the passport,
I've yet to meet a passport officer or customs officer who will actually ask
"Do you really look like that all the time?" or crack up laughing. But I'm
keeping hope alive.

~~~
ido

        When I travel (and I do so a fair amount) I only need my ID card
    

How are you let across international borders with only ID? I was under the
impression that is only possible under very specific circumstances (e.g.
between some EU states). Specifically, I can't imagine you're are let in or
out of the US (other than maybe to Canada and Mexico) with just an id...

~~~
Nanzikambe
You can travel freely to any EU, aspiring EU or Schengen country without need
for a passport, you just need your national ID card.

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Agreement)

\- [https://www.bfm.admin.ch//bfm/en/home/themen/fza_schweiz-
eu-...](https://www.bfm.admin.ch//bfm/en/home/themen/fza_schweiz-eu-efta.html)

I've no intention of ever travelling to the US or any nation with similar
travel requirements purely because that'd require a bio-metric passport. I
dislike photos as it is ...

~~~
avar
Note that some countries (e.g. Iceland) are in Schengen but have no accepted
national ID card that isn't the passport, so de-facto you need your passport
to travel, even within Schengen.

I don't know if Iceland's the rare exception here or if this goes for some
other countries as well.

~~~
GunlogAlm
> I don't know if Iceland's the rare exception here or if this goes for some
> other countries as well.

If you mean exception as an EU country with no national ID scheme: the UK,
Denmark, Ireland, and Norway also don't have national ID cards.

If you meant a Schengen country with no national ID: Denmark and Norway are
other Schengen countries with no national ID cards (Norway isn't in the EU but
is in the EFTA).

------
dionidium
_Is this a practical, answerable question based on an actual problem that you
face? Are you deciding whether or not to do something based on answers to this
question? It 's an interesting question, but I don't see how it's in-scope for
this stack exchange._

Tangent: Oh, good god. I guess I should be heartened that it's not just
programmers who think this way. What a useless sentiment this is.
Stackexchange is like a super smart scientist uncle who has this one weird
blind spot for homeopathy or something. It's so frustrating to see this sort
of comment over and over.

~~~
gtaylor
I wholeheartedly agree. I've seen some really good questions buried/closed
prematurely because of this overzealous policing.

I'm not really sure what the other options are, though. Quora? Other web
communities that are specific to whatever topic you have questions about? It's
a shame, because I otherwise really like Stack Exchange's layout and mechanics
as a whole (as someone mostly Googling around for existing questions/answers).

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _I 'm not really sure what the other options are, though. Quora?_

There are various AskReddit clones, and various subreddits dedicated to
culling the "best of". However, this is pretty hit or miss, and just searching
for content is pretty hard.

~~~
Houshalter
Askreddit has become pretty much /r/tellMeStories. /r/explainlikeimfive has,
unfortunately, become what you are looking for.

------
ChuckMcM
Back in the day when they just took the photo you gave them and laminated it
into the passport, I wondered what would happen if you printed the picture
using photo reactive ink.

I used to have as a sample some ink that would break down in ultraviolet light
and become transparent. The use case was things like printable visitor badges
that after 24 hours of exposure to light would say "VOID" on them. Basically
they had the word VOID on them, then white photosensitive ink was put over it,
and the badge printer printed on top of that ink.

So my question was if you created two photos, and then printed over one with
another, then after a while the picture in your passport would be different.

The challenge I never figured out was you could get this ink in black, or
white, but I wasn't sure you could make a black and white print blending the
inks that would pass muster. It would have to be opaque enough to cover the
picture behind it.

Sadly I had to file that idea under "probably won't ever be able to know one
way or another." but it might make for an interesting plot mechanism if I get
around to writing a thriller.

------
guelo
I used to be some kind of techno-optimist which is why I chose the software-
based career path that I did. But now I'm realizing that governments and
corporations are actually building The Matrix, and we are all getting plugged
into it whether we want it or not.

I'm having a crisis of conscience. Even things like the open source movement
end up contributing to these scary bureaucracies that are destroying our
freedoms. I fear for what will become of humanity over the next few decades.

------
mrt0mat0
So, if I smile while committing a crime, facial recognition software won't be
able to identify me. Got it, Thanks!

~~~
dhughes
Everyone make note of this day: the Riddler is born.

~~~
brc
Er, don't you mean the Joker?

~~~
dhughes
Daaaaaaaaaaamnnn it!

Fuck, I just made bash.org didn't I? :( Maybe it's only IRC, I can only hope.

------
diminoten
Is anyone unsatisfied with the "it helps with facial recognition software"
response?

What part of facial recognition relies on the lack of a smile? I was hoping
_that_ would get explained here, and am disappointed that it wasn't.

I think everyone assumes it's for facial recognition...

~~~
brc
It is for facial recognition software.

I know nothing about the field, but my assumption would be that you need a
plain base to work from. That way you start with a known value and you compare
from the base to the image you're trying to match.

If you had a smiling photo as the base, and you're trying to match a photo
where the person is frowning, that must be that much harder to work out.

Remember that smiling changes not on the mouth but the eyes as well. I would
guess that eye shape is a key factor in making facial recognition work.

For the record, I am favor of facial recognition for identity checks with
passports. It means I can use the automated immigration processing queues,
which are much, much faster than standing in a line waiting for a guy to ask
you a couple of benign questions and stamp your passport.

~~~
therobot24
Eye shape is good in NIR images, otherwise in VL images it not as big a
factor.

------
TrainedMonkey
TL:DR - Apparently, one of the reasons for it is so facial recognition
software works better, other constraints are defined in ISO/IEC 19794.

------
rachelbythebay
[https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=markhacker](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=markhacker)

Also travelhacker and travelstacker. Probably more.

Tagged URLs. See the /101?

------
alanbailward
I can't answer this on the site, but my boss claims that he was partially
responsible for this. He worked with the company doing facial recognition
software to hunting down kiddie porn makers, which was (I think) moved into
terrorism detection (this is in the 2001-2002 timeframe). They couldn't get
the facial recognition to work with enough accuracy with anything but a blank
facial expression.

------
dzhiurgis
So if I smile daily and everywhere my face would be more difficult to
recognise and track?

------
mandeepj
You will not be smiling when you are getting interrogated at the airport
security so to match your face 100% with your passport photo they don't want
you to smile :-)

------
TacticalCoder
Is it just me or is the top voted answer not an answer?

Q: "Why should cows be colored in blue?"

A: Because document ZOIU-123497 says cows should be colored in blue.

~~~
sgustard
Quit stalling and turn in your damn blue cow sheets already.

------
bonemachine
Because they don't everyone to know how happy you were the day you knew that,
soon enough, you'd be leaving.

------
loup-vaillant
> _1.9. Coverings, hair, headdress, hats, scarfs, head bands, bandanas or
> facial ornamentation which obscure the face, are not permitted_ (except for
> religious […] reasons).

I can't wait for someone to abuse this. I hear some tattoos tend to disrupt
facial recognition…

~~~
letstryagain
Get one of those temporary tattoos that fade away after a couple of weeks

------
Stal3r
This was in the news when it was announced that you couldn't smile in ID
photos. I thought it was common knowledge.

------
martingordon
FWIW, I am smiling on my US passport issued in 2005 and haven't had any
issues.

------
kimonos
Because smiling makes people’s faces less, rather than more, recognizable.

------
hydralist
tl;dr anyone?

~~~
mark-r
Facial recognition requires a closed mouth. Standards organizations are
adopting rules that make facial recognition possible.

~~~
Nanzikambe
This, I think the width of your mouth is a data-point which is stupid and
exploitable, after all you can contort your mouth in a dozen ways without
opening it or smiling (see my other post in this thread).

And that doesn't even take into account the use of things like lipstick to
make your mouth seem wider ...

