One in five passport photos were knocked back last month as Kiwis rushed to renew their passports and failed to take the right shot.
Internal Affairs assessed nearly 50,000 photos in April and rejected 9,497, or 19% of all the Passport Office saw, with similar rejection rates in the previous three months.
Fair Go learned of that looking into the case of one man who was rejected four out of five times and paid for three professional passport photos before one was accepted.
Duane Jenkin says two DIY attempts on a smart phone failed, but also a shot taken by Warehouse Stationery and another by a Life Pharmacy, before a third taken at another Life Pharmacy was successful.
“I appreciate the companies refunded me, but it's not about that; it's about providing a service that's fit for purpose and does the job," says Jenkin.
"I don't want a refund; I want a photo that works.”
Warehouse Stationery says it is sorry for the inconvenience and that it strives to ensure its passport photos meet the standards.
"We’ve recently had the Department of Internal Affairs audit our passport photo process, including visiting our stores to review our process, and give us feedback on the areas that we could improve."
Life Pharmacy says it trains staff and reviews their work for up to four weeks until they can take the required photos without supervision.
It confirms that it did edit a photo of Duane which was rejected and can’t say why it would have done that. However it tested both photos - the original and the edited - in the Passport Office online photo checker.
“Both passed, so we are confused as to why it was rejected later," says Green Cross Health spokesperson Edwina Neilson.
Internal Affairs says the online checker is designed to be less strict to avoid creating a hurdle at the start of the process.
“Being too strict in rejecting photos at the start of the process prevents people from applying at all,” says Julia Wootton, GM Services & Access at Te Tari Taiwhenua (Department of Internal Affairs).
“This can lead to significant delays where there are errors or issues with other parts of the application.”
Wootton says DIA recently tweaked the online self-checker for photos to allow around 10% more sizes and formats through – but the application still relies on a manual check by a Passports officer so that the passport will work with the facial recognition systems used at airports and borders.
“Poor quality passport photos undermine these systems and, if they do not work seamlessly, the system bogs down leading to delays, traveller frustration and, in the worst case, an opportunity for the wrong sorts of people to slip through into our country or into others,” says Wootton.
Passports has a handy and pretty slick explainer video for taking smartphone passport pics.
It encourages people to allow plenty of time for processing.
Digital photos may be instant but approval or rejection of them in your passport application can take a few days.
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