Arrggh - passport office has rejected photo

[bendmeoverbackwards]

Applied for a new passport for my 15 year old dd a few weeks ago. Submitted a digital photo that I thought looked ok. The swingometer thing swung to green when I submitted it so I thought it was ok.

Today I've had an email that it's too shadowy and I have send another one in.

Does anyone know if the 10 week period has to re-start now from when I submitted the application? We are travelling mid-August.

Not exactly the same, but might well be the same process - I had to get someone different to verify my son’s identity as they rejected the first verification. I got someone else to do it straight away and resubmitted and then it was approved within a matter of hours, so it had stayed at the top of the pile for processing, iyswim.

I've had to get 4 people to verify identity with no explanation each time with the others weren't suitable. It's very frustrating but is taking ages.

The same thing happened to my husband. He resubmitted the photo last week and the passport arrived today.

Just go to somewhere like Timpsons and get one done and immediately upload it back to the application (if it was done online to begin with). This is what I did but I didn't see if you'd done it online to start with.

@Glittertwins dd is autistic and seemingly simple things like this are difficult for her. It was a battle getting her to get her sister to take a photo of her and send it to me.

That’s good to hear @Chocs44 looks like they do all the other checks while they’re waiting for the photo.

Ah, she might not be happy somewhere like Timpsons then.
The passport office are odd as they rejected DD's but accepted DS's and his had a similar shadow. Both showed green online so I also presumed both were acceptable.

The same thing happened with my 15 yr old DD, we took our own photo that got the green 'good' on the initial application but they rejected it. I took her to a photo booth to get a new photo, uploaded the code on the passport application that day and about two hours later I got a message to say it had been approve. The passport was delivered about 5 days later.

The paid for digital photos are supposed to be automatically accepted but at £8 (£10 for Timpsons I think) each it adds to the cost. Especially as my own and DS home photos were accepted.

No I don’t think this will restart the 10 week period. We had an application paused waiting for id (not the same situation I know) and it was just a couple of days and then it was approved and printed.

You can apply for an exception if the person can't meet the usual photo rules for some reason.

Is it completely uneven eg obviously lit from one side? If not it might be possible just to lighten it in a graphics programme and re submit.

I don’t want to post the photo obviously but there is some shadow on the wall behind her and a bit of shadow on her face from her curly hair.

Like others, my 15 year old DD had hers put on hold as they wanted verification (shock horror, she looked pretty different from her old passport at 10 years old!) All accepted in a few hours and we received the new passport the same week. A friend of mine had 2 out of her 3 (separate) renewal pics rejected but still had all passports back within 2 weeks. This was all within the last month.

Yes, I did this because DS1 has a squint, so the photo flagged as amber on their form as he wasn't looking at the camera (with one eye). It got approved with no further problems - but I put it in at the time, might be trickier retrospectively.

I had the photo rejected for my DD for shadows and resubmitted, had the new passport in less than a week after that.