Don't say cheese for passport photos, Germans told

Berlin - Germans should no longer smile in identity photographs for new biometric passports, the interior ministry requested.

Passport photos should be taken "face on, the head uncovered, and with the most neutral expression possible", the ministry has advised photographers and authorities, six weeks before the introduction of the new identity documents on November 1.

"However pleasant a big smile might be, it cannot be accepted" if the biometric recognition technology was to work, the ministry explained.

The original photo will be stuck inside the passport as before, but it will also be recorded digitally in a chip.

Germany is the first European Union country to launch electronic passports that will at first store information on facial characteristics, then fingerprints from March 2007 and, later on, iris recognition data.

In August, British authorities went a step further, instructing passport applicants to keep their mouths shut and remove glasses while posing for photographs. -- Agence France Presse

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