Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Sharpe of Epsom on 31 January (HL1679), whether they plan to review the algorithms used in the automatic verification of passport photographs to ensure that they account for ethnic diversity, notwithstanding any direct human intervention.

The initial check to determine if a photo meets the internationally agreed standards for passports utilises an algorithm provided by a leading technology provider and, through extensive testing, this has been optimised to help best meet the needs of His Majesty’s Passport Office and its customers. HM Passport Office is committed to making applying for a passport as simple as possible and will continue to evolve its photo checker as algorithmic technology improves.