Generally, the law assumes that people control images of themselves. There are some exceptions, such as for public figures, crowd shots, public places, events of public interest, and so on. But I've always thought that the principle in US and most Western law systems is that you get to say "That picture is me" and exert some control over it.

Except that photos aren't just intellectual property. Among other things they're means of identification. Passports, for example, contain photos and there are some restrictions on what counts as a legitimate (legal) passport photo in the US. Even if you follow the law you may not be in the clear. A friend of mine recently traveled to Puerto Rico and had some serious hassles with US Customs for failing to look like her passport photo, including the memorable line "Well, you shouldn't have cut your hair." No, really.

Over in the UK, they've been accepting digital photographs of citizens for identification cards. However, people don't necessarily take the best digital photos and, according to The Reg story, the UK Passport Service is starting to wrestle with the maleability of the digital image.

The sequence apparently goes something like this - you take a digital pic that you think is you and submit it as a passport pic. It gets rejected. So you pop it into Photoshop or your favorite equivalent and touch it up a bit. Apparently, this is now frowned upon. So one is left to wonder precisely which photo-enhancing operations are legal, illegal, and which make a "you" image "not you" or vice versa.

I'm no photo wizard, but I regularly touch up digital shots for myself and friends - fixing light and color balances, sharpening features, blurring out unwanted intrusions into the frame, removing redeye. It's all still pictures of them, right? Maybe, maybe not. And if it's not a picture of that person any longer, who has what rights to the image's use?