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Government AI Digital Technology

Germany Bans Digital Doppelganger Passport Photos (reuters.com) 58

Posted by BeauHD from the digitally-altered dept.
Germany will outlaw the morphing of passport photos, in which pictures of two people are digitally combined, making it possible to assign multiple identities to a single document. Reuters reports: Morphing can trick artificial intelligence used at passport control into recognizing different individuals. The government on Wednesday backed a law requiring people to either have their photo taken at a passport office or, if they use a photographer, have it submitted in digital form over a secure connection, spokesman Steffen Seibert said. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics have found that it is possible to morph photos of the faces of different people who are not even related. A certain degree of similarity is sufficient, such as the eyes being aligned. Such manipulation of photos is typically invisible to the human eye, the researchers found.
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Germany Bans Digital Doppelganger Passport Photos More

Germany Bans Digital Doppelganger Passport Photos

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  • Uhm, wow, ah. Not already illegal? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2020 @09:30PM (#60143064) Homepage

    First, wow that this is possible.

    Then, I understand new regulations to ensure that it does not happen, but wasn't this already illegal?

    Finally, welcome to the new age of spying. Because I guarantee that spy agencies (probably starting with the Germans) are already doing this. Just find someone that looks similar to your CIA agent and issue the Agent a passport using that person's name and a merged photo.

    Not that it matters much, as currently all powerful governments take your picture when you enter the country and match it to your passport name. The spies are already having a real problem going to the same country twice with a different name.

    • Yeah, I have to agree - isn't it ALREADY illegal to substantiallymodify your passport photo before submission in any way shape or form?

      • Yes, though making a more severe and specific law against could make the consequences more severe to discourage others.

      • This sounds like the kind of thing that should be the law, but may not be. Also what's your definition of substantial? TFA is talking here about subtle modifications possibly not realisable to the naked eye.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      You are the government, simply easier to provide a complete new identity on a copied background of another citizen, a map to flesh out with a new identity. Identity manipulation is strictly for organised crime. I won't discuss how to disrupt it, it is not that difficult.

      The real problem here, someone in authority has a hate for you, they can place you anywhere they want to, dependent upon how secure their systems are or insecure on purpose with spy vs spy backdoors. They know when you have no alibi and they

      • I do not know what dictarial hellhole you live in, but that is simply not true in the so called 'free' countries.

        We do not want to corrupt or destabilize other countries.

        We do however want to:

        Make a ton of money off of them, as long as we can pretend it is not a violation of their laws.

        Obtain every bit of possible information on all their citizens in order to find the one in a million terrorists/criminals that will hurt our country.

        To discover and stop your governments operations against our countries.

        Quite

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by fazig ( 2909523 )
          The politicians in modern Germany tried often enough with stuff like "Vorratsdatenspeicherung" and "Bundestrojaner" (something to google for those who are not already familiar with it), and politicians speaking out against encryption.

          In recent years we've had the political party AfD [wikipedia.org] establish a website ("Lehrer-Meldeportal" if you want to look it up yourself) where students and parents were supposed to report teachers that spoke negatively about the AfD. The website created a lot of controversy. And while

          • Here in the US we have a web site that allows you to report negative speech about politicians. It's called Twitter.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          That was simply a logical strategy based upon reality, the source country of corruption and the target country are arbitrary, it is being done all over the globe. When contractors are involved, profit takes precedence over everything else, including actual socio-political goals or even competitive advantage for the source country or even competitive disadvantage for the targeted country, the profits of the contractors involved take priority over everything, apart from of course drugs and hookers or even jus

      • Just now watching Burn List?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by BranMan ( 29917 )

          God I loved the first few seasons of that show. Now that's educational programming done right! Learned a whole bunch of stuff - you will too!

    • Re:Uhm, wow, ah. Not already illegal? (Score:4, Informative)

      by GuB-42 ( 2483988 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2020 @11:02PM (#60143280)

      I think it has always been illegal. The summary is misleading.

      According to TFA the legislation is about making it more difficult in practice, by requiring applicants to have their picture taken at the passport office or have the photographer transmit it securely.

      • Re:Uhm, wow, ah. Not already illegal? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Misel228 ( 6428196 ) on Thursday June 04, 2020 @04:05AM (#60143868)
        Yep, German here. It is already illegal. The new part of the law is that the picture must be taken directly at the Government's office when you apply for a new passport or it must be transmitted directly from the photographer over a special service. The latter was added later on after protests by the photographers. Passport photos play a huge part of their regular income.
        • That will not work in Australia, where passport processing was outsourced to the local post office. But in really remote areas, the local post office and corner shop have closed down, so a 150 mile drive to the nearest ATM. Given the number of PC's hacked/owned/ratted this is not a problem. The actual problem is high quality forged baseline documents - which is still easy to do. See Iraqi and Nigerian passport issuance - money can buy anything.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward
            I'd say this is working as intended. Wasn't the whole point of Australia that you guys weren't supposed to leave?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mspohr ( 589790 )

            In the US, post offices take passport applications and also take photos... and there are post offices everywhere.

        • A huge part of their regular income? I think not. The average person with a passport needs a photo every 10 years, and not that many people have passports. The photo shop near me does maybe two passport photos a week.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kbg ( 241421 )

      There is no need for that. It's the government so they can just issue real passports with whatever fake identity the CIA agent is going to be using.

    • Dimwits. Forensic digital examination will with a high likelihood already detect altered photographs. If the digital forgery was hard to detect, then it would probably not be any good in real life. This means someone knows the error ratio of existing systems. And make silicone masks. Now when you compress in in H265, you CAN detect unlikely variations. But all this is rubbish if said photographer users say Windows as an OS, defective Bluetooth or wifi to camera connections, or so MITM attack in a regular

  • Oswald (Score:2, Funny)

    by boguslinks ( 1117203 )

    This happened back in the day with "Lee Harvey Oswald"

    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P3Bu... [blogspot.com]

  • How does this make it any better? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hawguy ( 1600213 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2020 @10:42PM (#60143220)

    if they use a photographer, have it submitted in digital form over a secure connection

    Wouldn't I just pay my photographer submit the altered photo over the secure connection?

    • Re:How does this make it any better? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2020 @11:10PM (#60143308)

      Wouldn't I just pay my photographer submit the altered photo over the secure connection?

      Sure, but first you have to find someone with a permit to take passport photos.

      Then you need to ask them to commit a crime, risking jail and the loss of their permit and thus their livelihood.

      Then you have to trust them not to rat on you to the cops after you pay them.

      Good luck.

      • Does one need a permit to take passport photos in Germany? That sounds like a very German thing.

        Why wouldn't I be able to take one with my smartphone, as long as all format requirements are fulfilled?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Kjella ( 173770 )

          Does one need a permit to take passport photos in Germany? That sounds like a very German thing. Why wouldn't I be able to take one with my smartphone, as long as all format requirements are fulfilled?

          Uh, making sure the person in the photo is the right person and not manipulated in some way? Here in Norway to renew my passport I have to go to the police station. They have the digital camera, they take the picture and also do fingerprint scans so sending somebody else would be rather hard. Same with our version of the DMV, they take the photo for your driver's license minus the fingerprints. It's at least a decade, probably two since they took your photo, put it on a passport and stamped it as authentic.

          • I see. Here you go to the police station with you photos; no one cares how you made them, and the officer who takes the fingerprint scans checks that they look like you. But still it would be great if they took the photos themselves; one less hassle.

            • In the USA, you can get your picture taken at a Walgreens, FedEx Office, or even at your house if they meet the appropiate specs. Then you take a printed version to a post office and they eyeball it to validate it's you.

              • RTFS ;-)

                Such manipulation of photos is typically invisible to the human eye, the researchers found.

                The check you're proposing is already in place. A government official processing your passport/ID card request checks the photo already. But they were not able to detect the forgery of images where two similar faces were morphed into one and thus two reasonably similar looking persons can use the same passport.

        • Does one need a permit to take passport photos in Germany? That sounds like a very German thing.

          That actually sounds like a very un-german thing to me.

    • For the same reason government mandated vehicle inspections doesn't result in massive fraud by authorised inspectors... They have too much to lose to risk it for you.

      • For the same reason government mandated vehicle inspections doesn't result in massive fraud by authorised inspectors... They have too much to lose to risk it for you.

        This made me laugh out loud. At least in Missouri in the USA this isnâ(TM)t the case. Inspections here are a joke. Every town I have ever lived in it is pretty common knowledge which inspection stations will look the other way and if they personally know you they will pass you regardless. And inspections are only $12 so itâ(TM)s not like they are even making any money, they just do not care. Same with catalytic converters. There is supposedly a $10k fine if a muffler shop bypasses a catalytic

        • Re: How does this make it any better? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Thursday June 04, 2020 @03:30AM (#60143810)

          This made me laugh out loud. At least in Missouri in the USA this isnâ(TM)t the case. Inspections here are a joke.

          I'm not sure why you laugh at your local country / state's flouting of laws. Additionally this has little to do with countries like Germany where records are regularly audited on safety inspections and inspectors are authorised by the notified body, TÜF.

          The USA certainly seems to have more in common with undesirable countries which they often criticise than they would like to admit.

          • The USA certainly seems to have more in common with undesirable countries which they often criticise than they would like to admit.

            Are you talking about what the president of this undesirable country calls "hell holes"?

            BTW. If your skin is bright orange, does that make you a "person of colour"?

          • The USA certainly seems to have more in common with undesirable countries which they often criticise than they would like to admit.

            The USA is generally a country of laws and for the most part follows them. People stop at stop lights and stop signs even when no one is around and generally follow most reasonable laws. There is a certain class of laws though that are almost completely disregarded. Speeding laws are a joke and everyone drives up to 10 miles over the speed limit consistently but usually no more than that. Environmental regulations are also routinely ignored especially by individuals and small businesses that can get awa

          • No one ever said Missouri was better than anywhere.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by _merlin ( 160982 )

          Yeah, plenty of "friendly" mechanics in Australia who'll give you a roadworthiness certificate (Victoria)/pink slip (NSW) when your car doesn't meat requirements.

  • How about not using shitty face recognition.

  • So, it's just one more charge against you if you're caught. This will COMPLETELY prevent anyone from doing it since bad guys are afraid of breaking the law.

    • This will COMPLETELY prevent

      I'm curious. Since in your eyes laws are only good if they "COMPLETELY prevent" something are you maybe suggesting we should simply abolish all laws because they are pointless? I mean technically you'd be right, we'd have no criminals and no one breaking laws if there were no laws.

      • This will COMPLETELY prevent

        I'm curious.

        WHOOOOSH. Watch out -- low flying sarcasm ahead!

        So I'm curious here as well -- how on Mars could you think I was serious? "Bad guys" aren't afraid of breaking the law(s), whatever they are. (OT: there are so many laws I imagine all of it are breaking some every day.)

        Laws don't prevent anything, they only show a guide and an expectation. So "completely prevent" is obviously bogus as all it actually does is allow for just "one more whatever charge" to be brought against the offenders. Laws are (or

  • Forgery of passports already is a criminal offense. So this law will only add up charges, as already mentioned above. Secondly, this law will have some side effects: - photographers will have to register and buy/lease the equipment and software to comply with this laws requirements - people will have ugly pictures on their documents (when taken at the passport office) - people will have to pay more money for their documents (equipment costs will be allocated thus increasing passport fees) What this law does

    • - fixing lack of digital infrastructure
      - summoning digitally educated personnel
      - injecting digital expertise into german government (officials)

      What the **** are you talking about? How about not adding "digital" into every sentence where it doesn't belong? Seriously...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by fazig ( 2909523 )
        Come on now. Maybe he's an aspiring Star Trek dialogue writer.
      • Exactly the spirit of the german government. They also think, digital does not belong anywhere. So they end up making laws for restricting stuff they do not (want to) understand instead of catching up in knowledge and infrastructure.
    • Maybe those side effects you mention are the goal. It could be a revenue grab, though I wouldn't think it would represent that large a stream. Though it might have been introduced by a legislator with a stake in a photographic equipment manufacturer. Or by one who just wanted to look busy and build a track record of successful legislation to help their re-election bid.

  • But hey, at least they got a bit more totalitarin oppressive surveillance out of it...

    Seriously, prison would be too nice for these types. (Ok, let's be honest: ... for Schäble and his gang. Our equivalent of Dick Cheney, and modern equivalent of Honnecker with a large dash of Hitler. With a in-government permanence, curiously comparble to Putin's. The guy behind pretty much every attempt at pushing Germany off the totalitarian cliff, who is responsible for creating our biggest Nazi terrorist organizat

  • Well, if they can trick the AI, what about finger prints? I think it’s a bit tough to lie in your passport, but the other documents looks possible.
  • The flaw isn't the photos, it's the application of AI to an adversarial problem domain. AI isn't well suited to problems where you can attempt to exploit the learning structures with purposely confusing inputs. This is just a case where the marketing folks oversold a solution.

  • Of simply not allowing passports. That is 100% effective. But seriously, it sucks not being able to allow the country because your government won't give you permission. The company I work for has an office in Richmond, BC, and most of our employees can't go there.

  • Still don't understand why would you have to provide your own picture for the passport, why isn't the photo taken by the official that handles your passport and who takes your fingerprints. It's even getting harder to actually find a place where you can get your photo taken.

    • The German Peng! Collective [pen.gg] has put up a site Mask.ID as a protest to the harsh European border controls. This site lets you upload a photo, which can be combined with the photo of a fugitive. Again, this is a protest site, so the site mainly exists to draw attention to the harsh methods of closing the borders for people in trouble (where this trouble is sometimes be caused by the very same European Union). The site is therefore a proof-of-concept, and uses existing morphing technologies. Applying it in pra

    • In the US you can take the photo yourself or get it done at any drugstore, walmart or camera store. You take it to your local court clerk or post office and they send it to the state dept.
      • Yeah, that's how it mostly works in our country, except there are almost no camerastores anymore and no other locations to get your photo taken.

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