So with no status tracker after more than 10 business days I waited through the phone queue (twice...after a disconnect) 160+ people deep with my father conferenced in (the passport program will only talk to the person the passport is being issued for)...
A rep asked him some basic information about himself, put him on a brief hold... and then said that his photo was flagged as having a shadow on his left ear as a potential issue (????). They asked for a best contact number and said they would send it to a supervisor for a final review on whether the photo is acceptable or not.
What's wild is that the passport photo is the same* as his US passport (both applications were sent on the same day) and Canada's photo standards beyond size are very similar to the US - even plain background, no shadows, looking directly at camera, etc... (US prohibits eyewear without a doctor's note, Canada technically does not prohibit glasses but doesn't allow glare on the lenses and good luck finding a photographer who won't make you remove them). And there's no shadow on his ear in that photo.
(Here drugstores/pharmacies do passport photos using a point and shoot camera, and then place the memory card in a Kodak photo system. KODAK's moment's biometric system understands the visa/passport photo specs of the country you select, appropriately crops it to the specifications of the country [ear to ear, top of head to chin, etc.],
automatically checks that it meets the standards of the country, and then prints to the appropriate size. So the same photo is able to be used in a compliant way.)
Not the end of the world if they put the application on hold and make him send photos (vs. rejecting), but still inconvenient...
No emails and no online status tracker. Only way to get this info was to call...
