Photo of me holding my passport [closed]

Sounds unusual for sure, I work closely with HR and have never come across this.

What is totally normal and will often be requested is a photocopy of the main page of your passport and, if relevant, the visa for the country in question. This is a thoroughly reasonable request, many countries laws ask for this even to confirm that somebody has a right to work.

What it seems to me they are doing here...Is confirming that you are who you say you are. Maybe they've had problems with fake passports before; people photoshopping passports knowing that it is unreasonable and often illegal for the employer to ask to inspect your real passport.

By having a copy of your passport and a picture of you with the passport, with the passport open from an unusual angle, they can try to confirm that yes, this is a real passport.

Sounds pretty odd and unprofessional to me. You should make 100% sure this is a valid job first- it is not unknown for scammers to ask for ID and such proof pictures which they then use for use in future scams (pretending to be you...).

But assuming this is a totally legitimate company and all checks out then asking for a scan of your passport is normal. Asking for this extra picture on top of that...weird and quirky but its not like you're losing anything by following through.