Live data from Hacker News

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

raphaelfabre.com

61–70 of 100 posts

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

#61
post #16
post #5

Now we just need a scare story about how two similar-looking men could get a single passport using an "averaged digital composition". [To bypass a no-fly list, for example]

A friend of a friend told me about identical twins that sometimes swapped identities and documents, to circumvent some bureaucratic hurdles.

I actually know identical twins that do that... Seems quite common. One managed to board a plane with the ID card of the other one for instance.

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

#62

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…

I'm surprised passport offices don't care more about photo quality. I submitted a reasonably clear photo with good contrast correct colour balance, and the image on my UK passport (both printed and on the chip) is blurry, washed out, and badly tinted yellow/green.

I guess they scanned it in with crappy settings and didn't care enough to fix it.

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

#63
post #62

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…

I'm surprised passport offices don't care more about photo quality. I submitted a reasonably clear photo with good contrast correct colour balance, and the image on my UK passport (both printed and on the chip) is blurry, washed out, and badly tinted yellow/green. I guess they scanned it in with crappy settings and didn't care enough to fix it.

To be fair, if you see what they turn it into on the card itself, "quality" is not a selecting criterium. It's pretty much purely "contrast" and "framing" to make sure your entire face ends up on the fact, with enough contrast that a two-tone presentation still looks vaguely recognizable.

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

#64

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.

>having the passport office make the photograph

That sounds just fine to me. It's currently a stressful process of trying to follow all the composition requirements and hoping they don't reject it. Might as well have them do it themselves. More work for whoever has to take the photo, less work for everyone else.

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

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't think anyone uses the photo for biometric identification. I thought those devices you look at in line simply take a photo of you on entry. In most countries you still face the customs officer who looks at you and your documents.

In Australia at least they do identify you at the smart gates for immigration. The customs officer doesn't look at visas or other immigration details.

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

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 at…

I've used this company to get passport photos with my phone in the past - http://www.epassportphoto.com

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

#67

What people seem to be missing is that this is a photograph. It just happens to be wrapped on a 3D model.

Is it? I thought the newsworthiness was that he re-made it. Otherwise, indeed, it is(/would be) just a picture.

Edit: this comment makes a pretty good point regarding that https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14576962

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

#68
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I tried that, to fool the bus' facial recognition system (they want to keep known assholes out, or at least that's currently the intended purpose (or at least that's what they say)), but you need to go really far before most algorithms don't recognize your face as a face anymore.

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

#69

Oh that's cool. Would be even cooler if he had embedded some obvious artificial artifact through steganography in the image. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography I've been messing with the system here by sanding off my prints before applying for a passport: https://jacquesmattheij.com/the-belt-sander-and-the-battle-f... That was a fun exercise but this guy takes it to the next level.

I don't see an easy contact method on your website, so here goes. The 'old people' link is dead. Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20110121171058/http://www.compas...

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

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 cl…

How is minor color distortion comparable to a completely artificial 3d rendering? In the past id photos were taken in completely black and white. But it was still a photograph of that person.
Post reply on HN