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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think the Passport Office is discriminatory

91 replies

cheapskatemum · 06/01/2017 09:33

Against people with frizzy hair? They've rejected my photo because the outline of my head isn't distinct! To make it thus, I would have to lard it with product such that the photo wouldn't look like me, certainly not like me after a long flight in aeroplane air, which surely defeats the object?

OP posts:
Softkitty2 · 06/01/2017 10:18

😂😂😂😂

Dawndonnaagain · 06/01/2017 10:20

Draw a black line around it with a sharpie and send it back!

Grin

YoScienceBitch · 06/01/2017 10:20
Grin
Softkitty2 · 06/01/2017 10:21

Well if it makes you feel any better I once had passport photos taken and I have curly hair, the photographer took it upon himself to cut out my frizzy hair.. To say I looked ridiculous was an understatement.

Ilovecaindingle · 06/01/2017 10:21

They rejected my dd first passport (about 5 months old) because only 1 ear was visible!! What if she had been born with only 1? Play dough? Plastercine?

Walkinglikeazombie · 06/01/2017 10:24

My DH's left eye is slightly smaller shaped than his right, and they didn't accept his photo for the passport until they modified the size of his left eye Hmm! Not a UK passport though

Hassled · 06/01/2017 10:30

The outline of my head is never very distinct - I too am cursed with frizzy hair. But I still somehow managed to make myself look like a middle-aged goth in my current passport.
You're absolutely right, it's Bad and Wrong and what you need is a social media campaign. #FrizzersAgainstPassportPhotoWrongness? Not very catchy though.

ElizaSchuyler · 06/01/2017 10:35

I had to remove my glasses & part my fringe. The result looks nothing like me.

user1477282676 · 06/01/2017 10:51

Laughing at all these! I'm imaginging all these confused people who've been given "makeovers" and not knowing who the person in the pic is!

ScrambledSmegs · 06/01/2017 10:52

Sharpie is a good idea. Or you could photoshop your head to give yourself a unique, defined hair shape. I like a nice rhombus, personally.

BubbleFairy · 06/01/2017 10:53

My passport photo has me with no glasses and no fringe. Which considering I wear heavy set frames and a thick full fringe, means I get raised eyebrows at passport control!

MagicChicken · 06/01/2017 10:55

Draw a black line around it with a sharpie and send it back!

That made LOL so much Grin

Treaclex · 06/01/2017 11:32

I've got 4 passport forms sat in front of me and planning on getting the photos done tomorrow first I pop out and get some lard then Wink

ATailofTwoKitties · 06/01/2017 11:35

DD as a small child had white frizzy hair and no visible eyebrows or lashes. We had her photo rejected as well, as most of her was invisible on the compulsory white background.

EthelEgbert · 06/01/2017 11:38

God one of my DSs would NOT sit still for their passport photo so that it "showed both ears" we must have taken 30 photos. I was losing the will to live and DS was nearing hysterics. Short of using a head vice - clamp we couldn't think of anything else to do so I pleaded on the application that we had exhausted all efforts to get both fucking ears to show could they please let it pass this time. And they did!

Then the first time we went through passport control the agent commented that he was "surprised they'd let this photo qualify" Blush

I never knew frizzy hair was an issue! Discrimination too right!

HuckleberryGin · 06/01/2017 11:38

I've got to do new passports this year, will remember to straighten my hair before the photos!

This story is awful, at least the guy found it amusing

www.google.co.uk/amp/www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/12/07/robot-passport-checker-rejects-asian-mans-photo-having-eyes/amp/?client=ms-android-huawei

EthelEgbert · 06/01/2017 11:40

ATailofTwoKitties Grin very funny

SnowBallsAreHere · 06/01/2017 11:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

chemenger · 06/01/2017 11:43

DD's baby passport photo was basically a white rectangle with two big blue eyes, she was very pale with just a suggestion of light ginger hair. That was before they got so fussy. Her last photos were rejected for lack of definition, i.e. no eyebrows or lashes. I took her to a photoshop and they adjusted the pictures to give her an "acceptable" skin tone, that she will never have. He said he had to do it all the time for gingers. (Before you get outraged she is a self-proclaimed proud ginger.)

YelloDraw · 06/01/2017 11:46

Crazy that you have to photoshop pale skin tone to be darker!

Wonderflonium · 06/01/2017 12:07

Did you hear about the case in NZ where they rejected an Asian guy's passport photo because his "eyes are closed"?
www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/12/07/robot-passport-checker-rejects-asian-mans-photo-having-eyes/

Facial recognition software is not good enough yet, they need to go back to the drawing board.

Thingvellir · 06/01/2017 12:15

This thread has broght back all the memories of the hell of trying to photograph a 2 day old baby, with eyes open, both ears visible against a flat white background! Not an easy task and the end result could have been a photo of any one of a million babies of a similar skin tone Grin

My DC were both born abroad so we needed to get passport applications off to the embassy asap to have a hope of bringing them home to visit in the first few months.

EvaSthlm · 06/01/2017 12:16

I've got a passport from another country and these days you have your photo take at the police station, right there in the application booth, by a special machine that looks a bit like an industrial robot and glasses are definitely not allowed. Hence the photo most of all resembles a mugshot, which is also basically what it is, taken by that robot as it is. But the only purpose of the passport is to identify me, and more specifically let me back into the country should I go abroad, so given that, I don't care much what I look like in the photo if I can be properly identified by it. Bringing your own photo is not allowed, it's the mugshot - or no passport.

wasonthelist · 06/01/2017 12:19

I don't think they are discriminatory - they are crap to everyone.

HuckleberryGin · 06/01/2017 12:26

Yes but even a mug shot if me would show my frizzy hair!