Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Online Passport Applications, July 2, 2026

United States passport applications may soon become easier, allowing you to do nearly everything online. Even the passport photo, saving you a trip to a location where someone or some machine wilk take the passport photo for you.

From Secretary Rubio’s recorded remarks:

“Now, beyond that I would say that we are also looking at some technological changes, which we’ll be more fully able to announce over the coming months, where it’s going to be a lot easier to get a passport in terms of the dynamics of it.  You’ll actually be able to go online.  You’ll be able to do almost all of it entirely online.  One of the questions we had was most of the devices that people are using, be it a laptop or a standing computer or what have you, where you would fill out this application, they have cameras on them.  I know, it’s shocking.  But they have cameras.  They have videos that people use.

“You should be able to take that picture on that device as opposed to going somewhere.  Now, the CVS people, of course, hate this, and the Walgreens and all those other places.  (Laughter.)  But you’ll be able to take your picture from that device and be able to have it in real time, through our security system, verify the facial ID.  And it just saves you a lot of – you don’t have to go down somewhere now and get a head shot and get the little pictures that you have to cut and then submit three passport pictures.  You’ll be able to do that.  You’ll be able to do it online entirely, for the most part, with all the right numbers.  They’ll be able to verify it for you, and you should be able to get it much sooner. 

“So we’re going to make it a much more customer-friendly – we’re not ready to do that yet, but that’s really what we want to be able to do.  (Applause.)  And it should cut down on the long waits, the long lines, the appointments, the making – some people may still decide to do it that way, but this way will be available to people.  And we look forward to, like, really rolling that out in a few months when it’s ready.”

Secretary Rubio didn’t go into the technical details of how they will ensure ICAO compliance for smartphone photos. What about the lighting? What about the inter-eye distance? What if I smile?

After all, smartphone photos are by definition “unconstrained,” unlike the photos you get at your friendly neighborhood CVS Pharmacy.