New Zealand’s Passport Robot Rejects An Asian Man’s Application, Tells Him To Open Eyes!

Passport hassles are no news! Infamous because of their unapologetic and unabashed regulations, visa sanctions can be the most whimsical affair of the year!

However, how do you blame an allegedly racist machine?

In a world full of bizarreness, Richard Lee, a New Zealand man of Asian descent had his passport photo rejected by a government website when its facial recognition software registered his eyes as being closed. Yes, no, while they were wide open!

22-year-old Lee was trying to renew his passport so he could return to Australia from New Zealand after Christmas on Monday but received an awkward error message when he submitted his picture to Internal Affairs’s online passport photo checker.

However, the engineering student saw humour in it and was quite understanding of the entire debacle that could have gone awry and on the lines of racism. He also said,

“I tried different ones and no luck, so I rang the office they said it’s to do with the shadow in my eyes and uneven lighting in the face.

The error message didn’t bother me that much, I saw the humor in it and obviously it’s a programming error in the recognition software.”

It’s easy to take offence and create a ruckus over a small glitch but how many of us can take the high road?

News Source: Daily Mail