the incremental birth of cyborg nation

Says the Guardian blog:

Saying 'Cheese' could soon mean you'll be taking your summer holidays in Bournemouth rather than Barcelona - as a new rule demanding straight faces only on passport photos comes into force next week.

The idea behind the Home Office restrictions - first announced last year - is to ensure the smooth running of new scanning technology, which apparently has problems recognising gurning and grinning holiday makers.

Stick another log on the pile of minor legislative intrusions. One of the reasons for the big hoodie flap earlier this year was due to the fact that people wearing hoodies can’t be identitfied by CCTV. So also baseball caps. It’s technology driven crime creep. To make crime fighting technology work better, harmless behaviour by people who aren’t criminals has to be made illegal. As crime fighting gets more hi-tech, it makes you wonder if some future government won’t pass a general law criminalizing any behaviour likely to contribute to the sub-optimal functioning of new technology on the grounds that it encourages crime.

Comments

[Katie Bartleby]

Going at it backwards of course. If people were actually SMILING in passport queues they'd be easier to recognise in their smiley passport photos. Why not change the drab, grey, sterile interiors of customs halls? Add the refuse from the millennium dome perhaps? The possibilities are endless...