Passport Photos

Oh! Something I took a part in on HN. That's a first. Almost everything there was practical. Highly recommend checking out all of Max's work, beaming with creativity.

how did you come to take part?

So its not mentioned on the post but is this your actual passport photo that was accepted and used and you have it on your physical passport right now?

I'm not sure anyone tried to actually use it as a passport photo. Would have been a great touch though.

It was fairly random, someone in my network had mentioned that Max was looking for people to take part in the project and I reached out. I was given a date and time slot and that was that.

While this may have not been done, I don't see a reason why these wouldn't have been accepted. Source: I am a certified passport photographer.

Would that even work? Are you not in Europe, where passport photos are taken on location?

In Germany and Japan, you bring one. It wouldn't be an issue if it fit the biometric spec.

I'm in Europe and mine sure was not taken on location. Had it done in a mall, and they sent it electronically to the police.

In both of the two European countries I've been involved in a passport application for, we had to bring photos along, which we got taken by a photographer in a copy store. There was no certification of the photographer involved that I'm aware of, just the usual list of requirements for the photo that they had to follow.

from the 3 or 4 docs i've had made within 10 years requiring this specification, only once was the pic taken on location

> where passport photos are taken on location

Europe is not a single thing and that statement is not correct.

I'm in Estonia (which is in the EU) and you can either submit a picture online or take the picture on location.

how do you get certified to be a passport photographer?

In the US, anyone can take the photo, including yourself.

In Britain you just upload a digital photo so it would work here.

I did this. It's surprisingly hard to find a solid white background and get uniform lighting at home. Took many shots.

Fifteen years ago I did my own in Canada, and just wrote my own name and phone number on the back as at the "photographer". They gave me the hairy eyeball at the passport office though but let it slide since the pics did meet the requirements.

After that I got them done at the local framing shop.

In the U.K. people used to go to a booth, but nowadays you just get a well lit white wall and take a selfie on your phone.

An oddball question, but do you have that government document/card that also works as a smartcard to create digital signatures? Does that get used typically in interactions with the government (or maybe even businesses)?

How odd, there's no verification if it is your photo

Don't know about Britain but the US also allows passport renewals by mail, so they can't check the photo against your face but they presumably can check it against your previous passport photo.

There is now, there's a system where you use a webcam to do a live facial-recognition check to verify your identity - with a for profit business (because that's what Tories do, make ordinary parts of government into a way to pay out private profits).

That only confirms the person sitting at the computer is the person in the uploaded photo though.

When you first get a passport you have to have your identity confirmed by a professional person with community standing, teacher, policeman, doctor, someone like that.

They do background checks, it seems quite rigorous.

Once you have a passport/driving license they allow you to reuse a recently verified picture in your application to get the other document.

Not gp, but a resident:

    > do you have that government document/card that also works as a smartcard to create digital signatures?

Yes. All ID and residence cards in Estonia include an embedded certificate pair for login (via PIN1) and sign (via PIN2).

    > Does that get used typically in interactions with the government

ID Cards, SmartID and MobileID are the only ways to login to any government system or bank. (Some banks also have PIN calculators).

Extra info:

Instead of ID cards, on a daily basis most people use SmartID (same as ID cards, but as a mobile app) or MobileID (same, but embedded to the SIM card) for auth operations.

Many computers in the government, hospitals and schools have a keyboard with an ID card slot and users can (or sometimes are required to) use their ID cards to log in.

There's also a free-software DigiDoc4 app available for Desktop and Mobile, which allows users to sign or encrypt any document or folder for free, using one of the 3 authentication methods mentioned above. You can use it to sign contracts like rent or business.

Late answer but just a note that if you're interested in the tech aspect of it, then the Estonian ID cards implement the IAS ECC spec for all the public key stuff:

> The application enabling PKI functionalities in Estonian eID Documents is IAS-ECC, a sophisticated but standardised solution conforming to CEN TS 15480-2 (European eID) with extra features.