Until this law you could simply bring your own picture for German passport/ID and the clerc taking the application would maybe eyeball you for verification, unlikely to reject anything but the most obvious fakes. Handing in a picture of Mickey Mouse wouldn't just get rejected if they have a particularly bad day, but anything somewhat plausible would likely get through.
Driver's license is an even lower standard iirc, because it isn't abused as an ID in everything but name. Driver's licenses merely document qualification and most don't even expire so you will occasionally see some frail elderly person hand around their licence to show off how they were looking at 18 years old.
I wonder if they can equip the passport office with software that compares your face with the photo; software face recognition is based on measuring the geometry of the face, and if there are strange differences (that the human eye can't see), the software should flag it..
Driver's license is an even lower standard iirc, because it isn't abused as an ID in everything but name. Driver's licenses merely document qualification and most don't even expire so you will occasionally see some frail elderly person hand around their licence to show off how they were looking at 18 years old.