Spain's express ID: photo taken at police station, old card cut

Express ID takes photo at police station and cuts old document

You pay the fee, the card has your name and face, and yet it ends up on a table with scissors cutting off a corner. Behind that scene is the phrase that has baffled more than one person renewing: «In this Unit, the image may be taken in those renewals that are determined, even if the interested party brings the photograph.» That is, even if you bring your photo, the office can decide to take it there. It's not your option, it's their power.

For years the procedure required a paper photo. The Express ID promises the opposite: no physical photograph, no appointment, and the document in your hand in minutes. The problem is that the change has come with fine print that not even its author seems able to explain. And when what's at stake is the document you use to identify yourself to the police, distrust is the least you can expect.

What does it miccionan that they take the image even if you bring the photo?

That the photo you bring from home is no longer the sole requirement. The unit can capture the image on the spot with a camera attached to the counter and will do so in the renewals it determines. Some read it as a safety net: if your photo doesn't meet technical requirements for framing or lighting, they don't send you home, they take it themselves and the process continues. Others see something less friendly: it doesn't matter what you bring because the decision was never yours.

The requirements: no data changes and a legible certificate

The express counter only activates if no data of the holder is modified and if the certificate of the old document can be read. Once these two conditions are met, the renewal is done in minutes and without providing a photograph. If you need to change the address or another field, you go back to the ordinary circuit with an appointment. There is also an urgent route for those who don't have one, but it must be justified: a police report or a plane ticket, for example.

The system has also been distinguished with an award for innovation in public management. An award that sits poorly with complaints about the image results.

Why the old ID ends up cut

Handing in the expired document is not optional. There are reports that they return it with a cut in one corner and that they made two diagonal cuts. Anyone who wants to keep it as a souvenir runs into scissors that turn a personal document into sliced cardboard. Some claim the practice is old, from when the card had a transparent edge, and others say it has intensified.

The alternative that circulates is to declare it lost. There appears the nuance that generates the most discussion: without a prior police report, a new one is not processed, and some claim that it's enough to say you can't find it. Added to that is a warning that should be taken with caution: losing the document three or more times in a year can be considered negligence and sanctioned with fines between 100 and 600 euros, according to the range being handled.

Rejected photos: bangs, beard and the print shop next door

The most repeated reason for rejecting your photo is not quality: it's that bangs cover your eyebrows, that the image doesn't look recent, or that you look the same as in the previous card. The result is usually the same: ten euros lost and a walk to the nearest photo shop. Several accounts coincide in the suspicion that the police station and the business feed each other; there is no evidence of this.

There are also complaints about the equipment. The counter webcam produces, according to several testimonies, images of questionable quality, with added problems for those who have no hair to frame their face. The paradox is evident: the same State capable of photographing a license plate from a helicopter cannot achieve a decent portrait at half a meter.

The underlying doubt remains. If the system promises minutes, without photo and without appointment, why is the most repeated experience still an argument at the counter and a mutilated corner. The official explanation is not on any plaque on the wall.