Ann Rafferty of Video Effects says dozens of customers' photos have been rejected by the passport office since stringent new requirements came into effect in the summer. - Lynn Lau/NNSL photo

Ann Rafferty, an employee at Video Effects, the only company in town that provides passport photos, says customers started showing up about three months ago saying their photos were being rejected. Apparently, the problem was small shadows in the photo.

"We've been doing passport pictures here for at least five years and all of a sudden the photos aren't good enough any more," Rafferty says.

"Other than buying all the professional equipment, there's nothing we can do."

At the end of May, the federal government launched a redesigned passport with added security features such as embedded photos. Now, instead of being laminated into the passport, passport photos are scanned and printed to the page.

Reynald Doiron, spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and International Trade, says the changes were needed to make Canadian passports harder to forge.

He says stricter guidelines have resulted in more photos being rejected, but people just have to find a way to fulfil the passport office's requirements.

Similar situation elsewhere

"This situation has occurred in many places, but of course in more populated areas, there is more than one photograph shop."

Although Video Effects is still offering identity photos for firearms certificates or other papers, employees are no longer doing passport photos.

"We just tell them they should probably wait until they go south or to Yellowknife or Whitehorse," says Rafferty.

Peggy Jay, communications advisor for the Inuvialuit Regional Corp., says the new photo requirements could pose a problem for people in smaller communities. When IRC staff travel into the communities, they sometimes bring a camera in to help beneficiaries get their passport photos, Jay says.

But lately photos they've taken are being rejected.

"I've been talking to the tech people who sold us the camera, and basically what's happened is you need another flash," Jay says.

She says she worries that the more equipment required to take a photo, the less likely an amateur photographer is going to be able to pull off an acceptable photo in a makeshift travelling studio.

"The passport people seem to think everyone lives in the city," Jay says.

Inuvik resident Charlie Villeneuve's passport application denied this month. Villeneuve had been planning to go to the United States sometime, but he doesn't know when he'll be able to go now.

Villeneuve says he is mostly annoyed at the video store for refusing to refund the $15 it cost for the photos.

"They offer a service and obviously the service they gave me is not good enough," he says. "They should at the very least give me my money."

Another resident whose passport photo was rejected says he's just glad he has the opportunity to travel elsewhere to have his photo taken. He was in Edmonton last week.

"It's life, I guess," Alan Davis says. "I'm just thankful I can fly South on business and take care of that kind of stuff, because people who don't have the means to come down here, they're going to have trouble."