The funny thing is, the local zoo had no problem taking your picture and printing it onto a all-year ticket 15 years ago, but I found it quite annoying that you are required to bring your own photo when applying for a new passport.
As I went through renewing my passport some weeks ago, having your picture taken with a webcam in the office would ad no complication to the process - any aesthetic value is lost by the time it is on the passport anyway.
And yet, the local zoo took the picture themselves in a process under their control, while the passport office doesn’t, but accepts pictures from external sources. That’s the point.
Professional photographers don't have a significant fraction of their business coming from zoo photos. They do for passport photos. They therefore complained about losing the latter business but not the former.
