[pmjordan]

> This is bizarre, blame the passport for only having the last two digits and not the computer reading it.

I mean, the passport only showing 2 digits is worth mentioning. But I doubt this 101-year-old got much choice in exactly what format his passport contained his DOB - so the software needs to handle it. So if in doubt (e.g. both possibilities yield an age younger than oldest person on the planet) the software should be asking to confirm the century.

If you want to get really fancy, check the issue date first. If this is before the supposed 20xx birth date, the birth date must actually be 19xx. People aren't issued passports before they are born.

[magduf]

I'm wondering if this is a case of idiotic government regulations meeting contractor requirements:

The government stupidly decides to only put 2 digits on the passport. They sign a contract with a company to write OCR software for reading passports. The contractor points out "hey! There's only 2 digits here!", but the customer doesn't have an answer because that's some other department and it's already done. So the contractor just implements the software as specified, assuming that being older than 100 is impossible, because the customer couldn't come up with a solution for this problem.

[ryanlol]

> I'm wondering if this is a case of idiotic government regulations

The MRZ is an ICAO standard so you’ll need to blame the UN for this.

> The government stupidly decides to only put 2 digits on the passport.

This passport was issued by a foreign government though.

> because the customer couldn't come up with a solution for this problem.

The app schedules an appointment with a human, presumably that human will be able to differentiate between a 1-year-old and a 101-year-old. Perhaps the problem never existed?

The home office phone rep fixed this in 30(!) minutes.

[magduf]

>The MRZ is an ICAO standard so you’ll need to blame the UN for this.

>This passport was issued by a foreign government though.

From my 20 seconds of Google research, plus your comment, it looks like the MRZ is something that various governments agreed on at some point, so the government that issued it isn't completely to blame, it's all of them that stupidly thought that either 1) no one over the age of 100 would ever have a passport or 2) there would never be a 21st century (as seemed to be the assumption through much of the 20th century with things like this; everyone always assumed the first two digits of years were always "19" and that anything starting with "18" or less was ancient history, and anything with "20" or greater was science fiction and would never happen in our lifetimes).

So my first comment is still correct, I just can't blame the UK government entirely for it, but since they're one of the main members of the UN (being on the Security Council), they do earn more blame than, say, Zimbabwe.

Anyway, the app was presumably made for a government contract, and silliness like this is common with those. There's a long list of contractual requirements for things made for the government, and the vendor has to meet all those requirements, so that's what they do. The vendor only has to satisfy the demands of the customer, and some 101-year-old person is not their customer, nor is whatever agent who had to deal with the mess, the government is (specifically whomever awarded the contract).

Generally speaking, with software, it works best when the customer is also the user. Users who don't like some software will try to avoid buying it, or will find another vendor if they're mad. When the customer is someone totally different from the user, you see real problems in usability, because the customer doesn't use it and doesn't care. So software made for government contracts tends to be horrible.

[mschuster91]

> and anything with "20" or greater was science fiction and would never happen in our lifetimes

Or rather, "this stuff won't be used in 2000 or later, until then we will have fixed it"... well, many banks, airlines and other megacorps still run on Cobol code which is decades old today.

[ryanlol]

That’s clever, but still leaves a significant edge case. I’d hazard to guess that 101-year-olds don’t travel very much and are therefore rather likely to be forced to get new passports for this specific purpose. (But perhaps the home office accepts expired passports?)

>But I doubt this 101-year-old got much choice in exactly what format his passport contained his DOB

I’m sure he didn’t, this definitely isn’t his fault.

> so the software needs to handle it

Does it though? It’s a rare edge case that should be trivial to solve with minor human intervention.

[pmjordan]

> Does it though? It’s a rare edge case that should be trivial to solve with minor human intervention.

Apparently[1] centenarians make up 0.02% of the UK population; how well this statistic transfers to EU nationals in the UK I don't know, but if it's 1:1 then this issue affects about 600 people. A large proportion of those will however have some trouble rectifying the problem themselves; the over-90-year-olds I know certainly would all struggle with this sort of thing. In the article, the activist who volunteers helping people with the registration process is quoted as saying it required 2 calls to the Home Office. This is someone who presumably has some practice dealing with the process and the Home Office and they couldn't get it sorted out trivially. If it's an accepted failure case of the automated process, there needs to be an established alternative process; it sounds like no consideration was given to this edge case at all. So, not "minor human intervention."

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...

[ryanlol]

I don’t think the article says that anywhere.

It does however state that the issue was rectified after spending 30 minutes on the phone with the home office.

E: Eh, I guess you rewrote your entire comment.

> there needs to be an established alternative process

Well, there is. You apply over the phone or in person.

> the over-90-year-olds I know certainly would all struggle with this sort of thing

Do you think most of those people would find it easier to use the app than apply in person or over the phone?

[gshdg]

Seems fair to guess most 1-year-olds don't travel much internationally either.

[ryanlol]

Sure, but I can’t see how that matters here.

[pmjordan]

If by most, you mean >50%, then you're probably right, but but especially within EU countries, having >10% foreign nationals among the population is common. Those foreign nationals will frequently give birth to equally foreign children, who need to obtain passports whether or not they're planning to travel. (Although they frequently do travel to visit family.)

TL;DR, 1-year-olds with passports are common.