> It's illegal because the law says that it's illegal
That goes for all laws.
> the law doesn't really have any justification based in fact or actual use-cases, it's just legislation and legislation has a mind of its own.
No, the law is embodying many years of experience with people attempting to forge IDs. So 'tampering' with the inputs to the process is tantamount to forgery, it makes good sense and it draws the lines in an extremely clear and non-ambiguous way. Far better than to leave some vague statements open to interpretation about what manipulation is allowed and what not (fun bit: people asking the service if we can edit out their wrinkles...).
> the government doubles down and requires an audit trail of the ID photograph from the taking of the photograph and all devices used to process the photograph.
In some places they do this, you get a certificate of authenticity with your passport photographs that you have to hand in to the officials.
That goes for all laws.
> the law doesn't really have any justification based in fact or actual use-cases, it's just legislation and legislation has a mind of its own.
No, the law is embodying many years of experience with people attempting to forge IDs. So 'tampering' with the inputs to the process is tantamount to forgery, it makes good sense and it draws the lines in an extremely clear and non-ambiguous way. Far better than to leave some vague statements open to interpretation about what manipulation is allowed and what not (fun bit: people asking the service if we can edit out their wrinkles...).
> the government doubles down and requires an audit trail of the ID photograph from the taking of the photograph and all devices used to process the photograph.
In some places they do this, you get a certificate of authenticity with your passport photographs that you have to hand in to the officials.