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.
She told immigration advisers they may have to find a diplomatic way of telling clients they do not look like their photos.
McDonald said she could see through her children’s social media that altering photos was becoming a more common and normal way for people to show themselves publicly.
“We’ve got more and more applicants applying, having kind of morphed their photos using AI or filters.
“I’m sure we’d all like to look a little bit younger, a little bit more beautiful. I can certainly think of ways I’d like to smooth out my wrinkles, if I could get the apps to work, but ultimately, we do need to see who the person is and be able to compare it to our official records.
“We’re starting to see around 1000 of these a week – it’s upping. It seems to be increasingly an acceptable way to present yourself, but for us, it’s creating really big problems.
“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.”
rnz.co.nz
