Too grim to grin?

One thing that is nice about me is that I always have a smile on my face. No matter what, I always smile and that smile has gotten me into trouble as well. I would be with my friends and family in a situation where the car would get stuck in the snow or the car would skid, I would have a smile and people would get upset about it. Friends would hurt me emotionally (knowingly or some unknowingly) I would just smile it off. Many admire me because of my smile and some have said that I smile like Catherine-Zeta Jones in ‘Mask of Zorro’. I think smile is one of the characteristics that only humans possess and one could use that to conquer anything in this world. Or is it?

USA today, reported last week that four states - Arkansas, Indiana, Nevada and Virginia, have banned smiling while posing for their driver’s license in order to get a neutral look that would help the face-recognition software in identifying people who would try to apply for multiple licenses or those who get a license under an assumed name. This face-recognition system costs about $63 million. The software measures permanent facial features at nearly 100 different points, so if someone sports a big grin it can cause two photos of the same person to not match. So what happens if a guy comes in a beard and mustache for a picture and after a couple of months he returns to get another license with no beard and no mustache? I am sure the software would go haywire yet again.

I can understand if someone is being asked to take off glasses or hat or brushing hair off of the face to get a good picture or capturing a cleaner image even for the software but not smiling or rather not showing the teeth and having to keep a firm zipped lips is something else. There would be a strong opposition in the cosmetic dentistry because of this software. What is the point in spending so much on those costly veneers only to keep your lips zipped on a photo that you would flash most often?

I remember the time when I went to DMV to get my first license here in the United States. I was grinning ear to multi-pierced ear to finally have that laminated piece of freedom in my hand. I could not stop smiling that whole day. But today if I had to go through the same scenario, I would be told to ‘zip it’ before the picture was snapped. All in the name of making this place a safe haven.