The town halls in the district of Ebersberg must set up photo booths from mid-2025.
Not everyone is happy about that.
District
– From mid-2025, the municipalities will have to set up photo machines in their town halls: they should not only print out the pictures for ID cards, passports and other official documents, but also send them digitally directly to the citizens’ office.
In the municipalities, one sees above all the advantages of the future system.
"Of course it's an advantage for the citizen if he saves himself the trip to the photographer," says Marianne Heimbuchner from the Glonn administrative community.
Again and again it happens that people make an appointment to have a new ID card issued and then show up at the town hall with a passport photo that is not up to date.
"Then we have to send them away again," explains Heimbuchner.
"The fact that the ID card has to be renewed regularly is because the photo should be kept up to date."
Administrative community Glonn: No need to rush
However, there are still no concrete plans for the purchase in the municipality in the south of the district.
They've already looked around for a suitable parking space, but there's no reason to rush: "We have two photo studios in town."
It's different in Aßling: "If someone comes here with an old passport photo or none at all, we first have to send them to Grafing," says Wilfried Graupe.
Such a photo booth is of course an advantage, "as an additional offer for the citizen" and simply because it can be done directly on site.
Purchasing such a machine before 2025 is not yet planned in Aßling either.
The simple reason: lack of space.
"We can't just put it in the registration office or in the hallway," Graupe describes the spatially rather limited situation in the Aßling town hall, which has already had to outsource employees.
"It is clear that we will of course comply with the regulation," he clarifies.
With regard to the topic of digitization, a lot has happened in Aßling recently - if the municipality finds space before 2025 where it could set up such a machine, Graupe does not want to rule out a purchase before 2025.
Photographers are "even the last deal" taken away
Hans Obertanner from Foto Obertanner in Glonn sees fewer advantages of fast photography directly in the town hall.
"It means death for the photographers," he explains.
He himself will be retired by 2025, so the topic no longer affects him, but "it's cheeky if the passport photos are taken over by the municipalities in the future."
This will take the photographers "even the last business".
He does not believe that the municipalities will face any difficulties with the special requirements that a biometric passport photo has to meet.
After all, there have long been photo boxes at train stations, etc., where everyone can take a quick, legitimate passport photo.
The machine can also be compared to a box like this: there is already a copy in Kirchseeon that not only prints out the photos, but also forwards them directly via the data line to the citizens' office for further processing.
"You're instructed on how to position yourself," says Michael Barthuber.
Inside the machine there is also a small instruction, which is not allowed on the passport photos.
"We've only had good experiences with it so far," he confirms.
Many citizens would also come just to take the physical pictures and take them with them - that's also possible.
Four pictures cost ten euros;
the municipality rents the photo box from a photo studio.
Maintenance and support run through the landlords.
"If there's a problem, they'll be there in no time and fix it," explains Barthuber.
"The system only has advantages."
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