The Canadian World Journal reported that during the process of applying for a maple leaf card (PR card) for new Canadian immigrants, applicants must submit photos. However, during the review process, officials of the Immigration Department found that some applicants had many problems with their photos, such as remakes, blurry, wearing sunglasses or hats. About 15% of the photos did not meet the requirements and needed to be taken again. To this end, the Ministry of Immigration has specially formulated detailed operating standards and required front-line officials to conduct strict reviews.

After the new immigrant arrives at the destination and completes the registration process, the Immigration Bureau will actively issue a maple leaf card. However, the photos in the card must be taken after the applicant obtains an immigration visa and submits it to overseas immigration officials.

Data from the immigration department shows that about 15% of the submitted application photos do not meet the requirements. If overseas immigration officials fail to immediately detect and instruct the applicant to take photos again, the process of submitting the materials can only be postponed until the new immigrant arrives in Canada and completes the registration procedures, which will lead to the delay in issuing the maple leaf card.

To ensure that visa officials can quickly identify errors, the immigration department specially formulated an operating guide numbered 540-A, which detailed the specific specifications and standards of the photos, and used illustrations to specify which photos meet the requirements and which photos do not meet the regulations, in order to reduce the possibility of errors.

After receiving the photos from the outside hall, the recipients of the outside hall must first verify whether the photos comply with the relevant regulations and ensure that they were taken in the photo studio within the past 6 months. The back of one photo must be marked with the name of the photo studio, the specific address, the shooting date, the applicant's name and date of birth; the back of the other photo must be left blank.

If the photo does not match the regulations, the applicant must be returned immediately, and a document detailing the size of the photo will be provided and a new photo must be provided. Even if the immigration application case can continue to be processed, a "permanent residence permit" shall not be issued until new photos are received.