In a dramatic turn of events, the Chinese authority has totally banned the usage of Wechat selfie app which was used in passports in order to ensure that the security and safety of the nation remains sound.
The authorities residing in China said that they are no more willing to accept Selfies as a substitute of the pictures used in official documents because they are being processed by another new app service named as Xingfu which is a part of the popular Wechat messaging Service according to the Chinese news service.
This has directly or indirectly banned the usage of wechat selfie app to be used in the passport processing documentation and this requires the users to take proper passport sized photos.
Wechat Selfie App
According to the experts, the idea which has been implemented looked clever. This is mainly due to the fact that initially the passport holders took a selfie photo with the smartphones and used to upload it to a digital photo center. The photo center was run by another company named as China Telecom and this company used to send this photo directly to the local police authority which play a direct part in processing the documents and photos which are used in making the passports. The app service was launched last month by a company named Xingfu Network Technology which is based on Guangzhou. This company also included in it a controversial function which set up the tone for wechat getting banned in China. The function included that the users can totally alter or change the images in such a way which would be enough the change the look of the person entirely. This feature was alarming for the Chinese authority because they thought it would induce the criminals to take part into criminal activity without being caught.
Therefore, the authority took the critical decision to ban the app from functioning in China Initially, the availability of the app was restricted to three Chinese Cities named Shenzen, Foshan and Guangzhou. The police departments stopped the app after two days of its official launch in March 25 and immediately banned the official use of all the photos transferred via the Wechat-Xingfu chat service according to a senior Chinese Official. The official also said that the app service was suspended temporarily and police are working together with the app authority to upgrade the service of the company.