Smile hating software invading driver license branches around the country

One of the worst things on anyone’s list of things to never have to do again is that of visiting the license branch.  I could be wrong, but going to the license branch is tantamount to when you where a kid and had to tell the neighbor you got caught cutting their tires….something like that.  Naturally, when anyone says that they are taking a picture of you, your first natural reaction is to smile.  Besides, who wants a bump on a log, mug shot looking picture?  If you live in the states of Arkansas, Indiana, Virginia, or Nevada, mug shots are the new fav.

Drivers in said countries are now being told that they can no longer smile as such a complex and mathematically impossible problem is the death of newly implemented facial recognition software.  Whether or not the person taking the picture was so bad at their job and cutting peoples’ faces off, or the state simply had money to burn is still up in the air.  The fact that the software sucks and is worthless is something that needs to be understood by all other states even remotely considering such awful software.  Would would you think if you worked in the construction industry and your site manage said that he was going to give you tools that were “delicate” and couldn’t stand repeated physical abuse?  You’d laugh at them and criticize them seeing as how construction sites and jobs require copious amounts of physical abuse, right?

Such analogies while odd and occasionally not exactly the most direct linear representation are there for better or worse to make something easier to understand.  If the states mentioned above had so much money to burn, why didn’t they go with a more smile-happy option that wasn’t thrown off by such simple bodily expressions?  Who knows.  Fine state politics and politicians at work displaying their finest sense of character and judgment.  I know when I went to get my new license back in December I was met with a camera operator telling me to look as miserable and “prison-like” as possible.  I slipped once (or twice) and smiled which in turn gave the picture software a small digital stroke.  While my stay then at the license branch was short and relatively painless, the new procedure for picture taking and the results of said labor are at best god awful.

If you live in the states mentioned above, or heck, one more time, (Arkansas, Indiana, Virginia, or Nevada), do you smile at least once in protest?  Or, do you comply like cute little sheep being led to pasture.  You obedient little sheep you.