Don't they take fingerprints for American passports? They do for the French ones so you have to be in-person, but they still expect you to provide the pictures yourself oddly enough. You can use an accredited photographer or, more commonly, one of these automated photobooths you can find in train stations and shopping malls.
In Germany they do as well. So yeah, in person. Don't ask me how that works for handicapped people and elderly not able to move.
They don't safe your prints anywhere else then your passport or ID, so. Theoretically, you can get a passport with your picture for a different person. Very theoretical, and also very illegal. As long as the picture was within spec for biometric pictures, it was ok to bring your own.
To be fair, a passport is only needed to travel outside of the EU. Elderly that can't make it to an office to get the passport will have an even harder time actually travelling outside of the EU.
You'll need state issued ID if you want to set foot in Belgium, EU citizen or not. You can be fined for walking around without ID. I suspect other EU countries have similarly disgusting laws.
Your point about people who can't leave their homes still stands.
Most EU countries I know have similar laws. Not sure why that is disgusting so. In Germany you have to identify yourself with a valid ID within 24 hours, if I remember well. Usually you have your ID in wallet anyways.
EDIT: As every resident has a primary residency address registered, this also serves as, what in the US would call it, voter registration. No purging, no tempering, not separate registration. You just get the papers by mail to your primary address. Works as well for EU residents for local elections.
I have never had my fingerprints taken for my American passport. For my Croatian passport, I had to go to the consulate in Los Angeles (halfway across the country for me) to get my identity verified and my fingerprints taken.
But, if you live in Croatia and the police already have your fingerprints from previous passports (along with you having an electronic ID card, which is standard and required), you can get a new passport quickly by applying online in the “e-gradani” or e-citizens service.
Things are changing and more and more countries around the world are requiring fingerprints at least at airports. For example, Peru and Senegal both required me to give my fingerprints when flying into their main airports.
Quite normal for me with UK passports, to be fingerprinted.
Some countries (Russia comes to mind) require you to physically go to the visa centre to get fingerprinted as part of the visa application, and then again when you arrive at immigration
Other places where visas are online, on arrival, or not needed at all, tend to fingerprint at the border -- the U.S, Singapore, etc.
We currently don't need to get fingerprinted in the EU, but we decided to remove our freedoms so not sure if that will change next year.
Getting fingerprinted is such a common thing that I can't remember many specific countries requirements.
Just FYI: It is generally required for EU passports to have fingerprint biometric data. From the Wikipedia page, passports of the European Union:
Only British and Irish passports are not obliged by EU law to contain fingerprint information in their chip. With the exception of passports issued by Denmark, Ireland, and the United Kingdom, all EU citizens applying for a new ordinary passport or passport renewal by 28 August 2006 (for facial images) and 28 June 2009 (for fingerprints) should have been biometrically enrolled. This is a consequence of Regulation (EC) 2252/2004 in combination with two follow-up decisions by the European Commission.
I've had them scanned for Global Entry in the US (and when I return into the country using Global Entry). But as a US citizen I wouldn't otherwise be scanned entering the US.
I've pondered putting some high-resolution scans of my fingerprints on my GitHub page for plausible deniability of anywhere my fingerprints might turn up.
The enhanced credentials you can get, such as "Global Entry" require an interview and fingerprints. Global Entry cards make it comparatively easy to return to the US via Miami in my experience.
