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Artist uses a computer model of his face to get a French National ID

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Re: Artist uses a computer model of his face to get a French National ID

#31

Post by jacquesm »

jimmywanger wrote: post #29
jacquesm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking to the guy that pioneered digital photos used for identification purposes in 1985 (Goodsports, Alphabet BV, Amsterdam). I think I know a thing or two about the processes involved to get a pass on being allowed to use digital imagery as proof of identity, the one thing that everybody involved from the official side was quite clear on was that any kind of tampering with the image content was absolutely f…

There's de-facto and de-jure. Any tampering is forbidden right? Even the transposition of a pixel is forbidden - it's technically illegal, but as long as it doesn't make a difference then I don't think anybody is going to care - so what if this pixel is cyan in this picture and turquoise in the other. When things are really going to hit the fan is if you are able to have a digitally altered picture that passes the ey…

Yes, this is correct. And that's exactly what this opens the door to. I suspect this will lead to some changes in the law regarding what route an image should take to be acceptable. It's been converging on this for a long time with ever more strict rules about what can and can not be in the picture. The list of requirements is quite long. It's a small step from there to having the passport office make the photograph.

Re: Artist uses a computer model of his face to get a French National ID

#32

Post by jacquesm »

pikzen wrote: post #30
jacquesm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking to the guy that pioneered digital photos used for identification purposes in 1985 (Goodsports, Alphabet BV, Amsterdam). I think I know a thing or two about the processes involved to get a pass on being allowed to use digital imagery as proof of identity, the one thing that everybody involved from the official side was quite clear on was that any kind of tampering with the image content was absolutely f…

Nobody uses pictures for identification. Not alone. In combination with everything else, maybe, but being French, I can even assure you that in most of the cases, people don't even look at your photo when checking your ID. They're always outdated, took in a weird lightning, and with a terrible quality. From an administration point of view, whether you took a picture of your face and mapped it onto a 3D model, or just…

Whether it is dumb or not does not matter. The facts are that biometric passports with pictures and fingerprints are the law of the land in a lot of places.

That you got away with giving them four year old pictures is good for you, I tried and was refused (and had to go make new pictures). And I haven't changed all that much (the giveaway I guess was that the picture was the same as the one I gave them last time when I applied for a passport).

Re: Artist uses a computer model of his face to get a French National ID

#33

Post by pikzen »

jacquesm wrote: post #13
morganvachon wrote: post #2

This is a perfect example of the uncanny valley for anyone not familiar with the concept. It's just beyond the threshold enough to make the viewer feel as if something's off.

I can't tell. And I used to be pretty good at spotting fake stills but this is beyond my ability to discern, what specifically makes you feel 'something's off'?

Shadows near the neck area, very similar to what most ambient occlusion algorithms would give.

Hair has a shine that would almost never happen unless you dumped an entire bottle of shampoo on your head for a week straight. It also just sinks right in, no pores, nothing.

Texture quality is still a bit low,especially on the forehead. Normal maps are off (or not there at all), so there's no bumps and crevices there. Skin is blurred (but that may be a compression artifact)

And of course, the blur feels extremely unnatural. Especially knowing the shitty photomatons 99% of people use to get their pictures taken for official purposes, they'll never have such a focus on the face and blur everything out.

Re: Artist uses a computer model of his face to get a French National ID

#34

Post by fmoralesc »

jacquesm wrote: post #15
noonespecial wrote: post #12

To be fair, his "photo" looks a lot more like him than my passport photo looks like me. It was taken early in the morning with an ancient camera under fluorescent lights at a post office. I am tinted decidedly green and my eyes look half closed. I look more like an extra on The Walking Dead than an international traveler. He claims the photo is a "fiction". All photos are. The photo's job is to say that "the person i…

> He claims the photo is a "fiction". All photos are. That's not true. Your passport photo is supposed to be a snapshot of what you looked like in person at a certain point in time. It is the difference between a registration and a creation. The likely effect of actions like these is that eventually the passport office will take the photographs to avoid people playing games with the system (such as: replacing the eye…

In Chile, where I'm from, the institution in charge of identity cards and passports effectively does this, and as far as I'm aware, always has. It doesn't sound weird to me.

Re: Artist uses a computer model of his face to get a French National ID

#35

Post by evanb »

Is there no confirmation under penalty of perjury that the image provided was a photograph (and not just a likeness)? Or, is it as he claims, satisfactory according to the requisite standards?

"Artist uses a blog post to provide evidence of government falsifying documents."

Re: Artist uses a computer model of his face to get a French National ID

#36

Post by noonespecial »

jacquesm wrote: post #15
noonespecial wrote: post #12

To be fair, his "photo" looks a lot more like him than my passport photo looks like me. It was taken early in the morning with an ancient camera under fluorescent lights at a post office. I am tinted decidedly green and my eyes look half closed. I look more like an extra on The Walking Dead than an international traveler. He claims the photo is a "fiction". All photos are. The photo's job is to say that "the person i…

> He claims the photo is a "fiction". All photos are. That's not true. Your passport photo is supposed to be a snapshot of what you looked like in person at a certain point in time. It is the difference between a registration and a creation. The likely effect of actions like these is that eventually the passport office will take the photographs to avoid people playing games with the system (such as: replacing the eye…

>Your passport photo is supposed to be a snapshot of what you looked like in person at a certain point in time.

Then the photo the Post Office official took fails this test. My skin is not green and my hair is not black. They sure look that way in my passport photo.

The likely effect is that my official "photo" will become an amalgamation of AI facial recognition scans at official checkpoints through time. Perhaps closer to this render than any single photo could be.

That's the scary part. The machine will simply learn to recognize me on sight. The 4th Reich won't have to demand my papers, it will already know me by heart.

Re: Artist uses a computer model of his face to get a French National ID

#37

Post by raverbashing »

jacquesm wrote: post #15
noonespecial wrote: post #12

To be fair, his "photo" looks a lot more like him than my passport photo looks like me. It was taken early in the morning with an ancient camera under fluorescent lights at a post office. I am tinted decidedly green and my eyes look half closed. I look more like an extra on The Walking Dead than an international traveler. He claims the photo is a "fiction". All photos are. The photo's job is to say that "the person i…

> He claims the photo is a "fiction". All photos are. That's not true. Your passport photo is supposed to be a snapshot of what you looked like in person at a certain point in time. It is the difference between a registration and a creation. The likely effect of actions like these is that eventually the passport office will take the photographs to avoid people playing games with the system (such as: replacing the eye…

No need to overcomplicate this: if the photo is obviously different from the person the document is not valid for its purpose

Feel free to submit a photo that confuses the biometric requirements, hope you like the automated border gates rejecting your passport

Re: Artist uses a computer model of his face to get a French National ID

#38

Post by jimmywanger »

jacquesm wrote: post #31
jimmywanger wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's de-facto and de-jure. Any tampering is forbidden right? Even the transposition of a pixel is forbidden - it's technically illegal, but as long as it doesn't make a difference then I don't think anybody is going to care - so what if this pixel is cyan in this picture and turquoise in the other. When things are really going to hit the fan is if you are able to have a digitally altered picture that passes the ey…

Yes, this is correct. And that's exactly what this opens the door to. I suspect this will lead to some changes in the law regarding what route an image should take to be acceptable. It's been converging on this for a long time with ever more strict rules about what can and can not be in the picture. The list of requirements is quite long. It's a small step from there to having the passport office make the photograph.

> Yes, this is correct. And that's exactly what this opens the door to.

I don't quite understand what you mean. I get that it's technically illegal to swap pixels, but I don't think anybody can tell/would care if that happened. Only if a digitally altered picture can pass both a visual clerk test and facial recognition software will this be considered a problem.

Also, everything is still pointing towards having the passport office make the photograph. Right now post offices do have picture taking facilities - I think that if you just prevented people from taking their own to the post office, or made them take the picture at a place that never let you take possession of the photograph, that would be roughly equivalent. Hardly anybody takes a passport pic at home now, in my experience.

Re: Artist uses a computer model of his face to get a French National ID

#39

Post by natdempk »

cm2187 wrote: post #8
tyingq wrote: post #6

The US passport system has you bring in your own photos as well. I wonder if the various law enforcement facial recognition databases account for the potential of people altering photos...changing the distance between eyes, nose, etc. Of course, end users can't alter mug shots.

The problem is that if you do that, you won't be able to use the epassport gates. Not that they are very efficients, but perhaps one day they will be.

Maybe this is a feature rather than a bug. Hypothetically you could create a representation of yourself that works for humans to recognize you, but not for facial recognition systems.

Re: Artist uses a computer model of his face to get a French National ID

#40

Post by jacquesm »

jimmywanger wrote: post #38
jacquesm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is correct. And that's exactly what this opens the door to. I suspect this will lead to some changes in the law regarding what route an image should take to be acceptable. It's been converging on this for a long time with ever more strict rules about what can and can not be in the picture. The list of requirements is quite long. It's a small step from there to having the passport office make the photograph.

> Yes, this is correct. And that's exactly what this opens the door to. I don't quite understand what you mean. I get that it's technically illegal to swap pixels, but I don't think anybody can tell/would care if that happened. Only if a digitally altered picture can pass both a visual clerk test and facial recognition software will this be considered a problem. Also, everything is still pointing towards having the p…

> I get that it's technically illegal to swap pixels, but I don't think anybody can tell/would care if that happened.

This was an extremely important part of the workflow we set up long ago, to ensure integrity. Even compression artifacts were 'out', this posed some very interesting challenges in controlling the laser printers available at the time to output grayshades (which they really did not want to do), early attempts at dithering did not meet the required standards.

> Hardly anybody takes a passport pic at home now, in my experience.

Interestingly enough, my partner at the company that I worked for in the 80's (and who is technically retired) has just started up a new company to make those pictures with your smartphone.

http://www.photo4id.com/

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