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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.
(Reporting by James Regan; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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