I've been sent to the Gitmo departure lounge for dodgy passportry, so it can fail (in my case, I was a bit more sturdy when the picture was taken). It had previously caused me to have to do impressions of a fat me by blowing out my cheeks and doing the greedy chipmunk dance for immigration staff (that's high comedy for the French). Anyway, after that incident US immigration insisted that if I wanted to come back I had to get a new passport with an updated picture. If Moby gets fat, he's going to have the same problem in reverse.
I tried the automated thing once and had to take my glasses off. Which meant I couldn't read the instructions. I'd rather deal with the laughter factory at the desks. There's no point encouraging our robot overlords.
I countersign a good few passport photos. Not sure if I'm supposed to, I'm definitely not of good character. If I recall, I got our HR top bod to countersign mine last.