Immigration New Zealand says 1000 people each week submit photos that have been filtered or airbrushed.
The agency receives about 20,000 visa requests per week, so about one in 20 photos has been altered.
On Friday, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment deputy secretary Alison McDonald told the Association for Migration and Investment conference in Auckland that the number of touched-up pictures was increasing and was creating big problems.
"We’ve got more and more applicants applying, having kind of morphed their photos using AI or filters.
“If you see your client and they don’t look like the picture, find yourself - if you can - a really nice way to point out that they’re not that beautiful.”
I remember DIA also having a similar problem even before generative AI. People would take passport photos with the front camera, which on some phones automatically mirrors the image and may do automatic touch ups. Then the person can’t use the e-gates because the passport image check fails.
I’d be so pissed off if I found out my phone was editing photos I took without me asking it to.