REUTERS - A New Zealand man of
Asian descent had his passport photograph rejected when facial recognition
software mistakenly registered his eyes as being
closed.
Richard Lee's
attempt to renew his passport was blocked after he submitted the picture to an
online passport photo checker run by New Zealand's department of internal
affairs.
The automated system
told the 22-year-old engineering student the photo was invalid because his eyes
were closed, even though they were clearly open, according to a copy of the
notification posted on social media site Facebook.
"No hard
feelings on my part, I've always had very small eyes and facial recognition
technology is relatively new and unsophisticated," Lee told Reuters.
"It was a robot,
no hard feelings. I got my passport renewed in the end."
Up to 20 percent of
passport photos submitted online are rejected for various reasons, an Internal
Affairs spokesman said.
"The most
common error is a subject's eyes being closed and that was the generic error
message sent in this case," he said.
The lighting in
Lee's first photo was uneven, but a later one was accepted, he added.
REUTERS
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