Oh My: Syria’s Passport Photo Was Stolen, Watermark And All

It’s common for passports to contain art and pictures, reflecting the country. For example, here in the United States we have a new “patriotic” passport, prominently featuring President Trump.

Now it’s the art in Syria’s passport that’s making headlines, for completely different reasons. As it turns out, Syria stole one of the photos used in the passport, and didn’t even remove the watermark… oops!

Syria’s passport contains a watermark on the picture page

Since 2023, Syria has been issuing biometric passports with a new design, though it’s only now getting a lot of attention. Specifically, the passport has pictures from around the country, and it’s the one on page 35 that’s the most problematic.

It’s a picture of the Al-Hamidiyeh Souq, located in Damascus, which is the largest souq in the country. That seems like a nice thing to put in a passport… right?

As it turns out, the picture has “WASEEM ASMAR PHOTOGRAPHY” written in big letters across the top left. So it would appear that the (now former) Syrian regime seemingly just searched online for a picture of the souq, and then used that without permission, and didn’t even remove the watermark.

Photographer says he was never contacted about photo

Wissam Asmar, the man behind the picture, is speaking out about this Syrian passport photo situation. He explains that he took the picture back in 2009, during his first visit to the Syrian capital.

He reportedly learned that his photo was being used in an unauthorized way three years ago, in an anonymous Facebook message. He clarified that no one from the Syrian government had ever contacted him to seek permission to use the photo.

He estimates that his picture may be present in roughly 20 million printed copies of the biometric passport, and suggests that the value of such an image in similar cases outside of Syria could reach up to one million dollars.

Now, a couple of things:

• I suspect that the number of these passports in circulation is nowhere close to 20 million, since they’ve just been issued in recent years, and the entire population of Syria is just over that number
• While it’s of course totally wrong to steal intellectual property in this way, I think it’s highly unlikely that this goes anywhere; heck, Damascus also has a “fake” Four Seasons

So I’m not surprised by the former Syrian regime stole the picture for the passport. I am a bit surprised that no one even paid enough attention to remove the watermark, though.

Bottom line

Syria’s biometric passport that has been issued since 2023 has a stolen picture in it. That’s not all that surprising, given the former Syrian regime probably doesn’t have much respect for intellectual property. What is perhaps more surprising is that no one noticed the watermark, as the photo of the Al-Hamidiyeh Souq has “WASEEM ASMAR PHOTOGRAPHY” written in big letters across the top left. Yikes.

What do you make of this Syrian passport blunder?