In the interest of National Security
From the
UK Daily Mail:
Six-year-old has passport rejected for being too pale
With his glowing white skin, clear blue eyes and soft blonde hair, Noreen and Bruce Coles have always said their six-year-old son, Richard has the face of an angel.
But when a photograph of the fair-skinned youngster was sent off for a new passport, officials found fault with his features, saying he was 'too pale' to have a passport.
Though the submitted picture taken by a professional photographer met all the guidelines, his parents were appalled to learn that his complexion was too light to be processed.
Mrs Coles, 44, said: "They said my son was too pale to get a passport. They claimed that he was too bright on his forehead, nose and cheeks- they said he was too pale to be put through the scanner.
"I was furious. He's always been very pale. But short of putting make-up on him what could I do?"
When the former office manager complained to passport officials last month, she was told that the only solution would be to re-take the photograph on an off-white background 'to reflect some darkness into his face'.
Undeterred, Mrs Coles insisted that a manager inspect the photograph, who agreed that there was nothing wrong with the image.
The manager agreed to process it manually to create an old-fashioned digital passport for the schoolboy, but she warned Mrs Coles that when biometric passports come in next month, staff will no longer be able to manually process a photograph rejected by the scanner.
And buried in towards the end of this article was this little zinger:
Last month, officials also rejected the application of five-year-old Hannah Edwards because the bare shoulders showing in her photograph could offend Muslims.
Gee -- are the Muslims all "
The Girl on the Billboard" perverts as well?
Posted by DaveH at September 18, 2006 9:31 PM