Who dreams up some of this stuff? Too many people don’t have enough to keep them productively busy or lack the guidance to channel their energy in sensible directions.

The photos that are taken for driver’s licenses have long been a joke. One television performer said she went back to the examiner three times to get a better shot and the subsequent ones were so bad she was glad to settle for the original, which she thought she hated.

But get this: Four states are now ordering people to wipe any semblance of grins off their faces before their license photos are taken. Why? Such “neutrality” is designed to minimize chances for fraud.

“Neutral facial expressions” are now required at departments of motor vehicles in Arkansas, Indiana, Nevada and Virginia. No smiles or grins, please. The serious poses are sought by DMVs that have installed high-tech software that compares a new license photo with others that already have been taken. When a new photo seems to match an existing one, the software sounds an alarm that someone may be trying to assume someone else’s identity. The wrinkle is that grins get in the way.

Face-recognition software can fail to match two photos of the same person if facial expressions differ in the photos, according to a university robotics professor in Pittsburgh.

“Dull expressions make the comparison process more accurate,” says Karen Chappell, deputy commissioner for the Virginia DMV. Its no-smile policy took effect in March.

What a break! Arkansas, Indiana and Nevada allow slight smiles but “you just can’t grin really large,” says an Arkansas driver services official.

Thirty-one states do computerized matching of driver license photos, and three others are considering it. Most say their software matches faces regardless of expressions. “People can smile here in Pennsylvania,” a transportation department spokesman told a reporter while flashing a winning grin.

In Illinois, photo matching has stopped 6,000 people from getting fraudulent licenses since the technology was launched in 1999, according to Beth Langen, the state head of driver services. How many were missed? How many drunken drivers getting fake licenses have sneaked through?

So don’t practice that smile before you go for your next driver’s license ordeal. If it comes out on the camera, it may register “tilt” like one of those old pinball games when it was jolted too much.