“If you can implement all of this on the fly, it's a huge advantage: It saves money and time and is extremely efficient.”

“We use Photo Collect again and again in partnership projects, for example at a renowned Bavarian car manufacturer. There, we had the opportunity to deliver and plan the ID card management. In this context, we also relied on a cooperation with Photo Collect.”

The car manufacturer was not interested in individual new hires, but in a complete ID card replacement. Rebadging projects are the ultimate test for any capture process: a large part of the workforce needs a new, valid image within a set period — and the rollout date is fixed before the first photo is in.

Among other things, the photo kiosk was used, an off-grid self-service station on site. This channel is suitable for all employees in the plant who do not have access to a business email address or whose smartphone is not allowed in the production area. Where possible, capture runs in parallel via the personalized link on their own phone, without an app and without login.

The process behind it remains the same in both cases: upload, AI validation of sharpness, lighting, head pose, and background, manual quality check, cropping, and background replacement. The card management system receives a print-ready image in accordance with ICAO and ISO standards. In the same run, existing legacy photos can be checked and normalized, eliminating the need to completely recapture existing photo databases.

An integrator doesn't see photo capture as a business, but as a risk. It is the step in the project that is the least predictable and the most likely to get out of control. “If you can implement all of this on short notice, that's a huge advantage: it saves money and time and is extremely efficient.”

What matters is where the effort disappears to. It shifts to the customer, but is largely automated: the end customer sends out an invitation or sets up a kiosk, the employees do the rest in less than two minutes, and approval lies with the customer. In industrial and production environments, that is the difference between a side project and a weeks-long photo campaign with shift planning.

To put the effect of the automatic pre-check into perspective: in practice, it delivers about five times as many directly usable images as an unprocessed upload. In a rebadging project for several thousand people, that is exactly what determines whether the deadline holds.

Whether a partnership works becomes clear not at handover, but in hindsight. “The cooperation was absolutely excellent. There was a real spirit of partnership between Photo Collect, ID-ware, and of course the end customer. It can continue like this, and I look forward to many more good and successful projects.”

"The best moment is when you look back on a project like this together with the client and learn that their feedback is also extremely positive: that the collaboration was very successful and the quality was outstanding."

An ID card solution is not judged on the day of go-live, but by the queries, complaints, and reprints that come afterward.

Capture is the only unstructured step in an otherwise controlled chain. The PIAM suite, personalization, and access control are specified and tested — the photo of the person comes from outside. Photo Collect does not replace these components; it closes exactly this gap and delivers the result via REST API, sFTP, or ZIP, with OpenPGP encryption on request.

Rebadging requires multiple channels at once. There is no single way to reach the office, the factory floor, remote sites, and contractors. App, QR code, kiosk, and smartphone come together on the same platform and apply the same quality standard.

This mainly affects providers of card management and PIAM systems, integrators of access control and time recording solutions, card manufacturers, and suppliers to universities, transport companies, and public authorities. All of them depend on the photo of the person, but don't earn money from it.

Photos of people are among the most sensitive types of data. For customers in industry, financial services, and critical infrastructure, the processing chain is an integral part of procurement due diligence.

Photo Collect is operated in an ISO 27001-certified data center in Switzerland, and each customer receives their own instance. The AI models are developed in-house; no foreign cloud services and no generative AI are used. Faces are checked and cropped, but not altered. The same rules apply to self-service kiosks, regardless of their location.