> you know - if you have two equally skilled people... and one of them has tattoos on 90% of his/her body and your company works for banking industry, then is it pros or con?

It's a huge pro.

"Wow, they hired him despite the stigma around his looks in our hugely conservative business, he's that good."

Same thing with hiring a non-minority candidate from a school that's known to do a lot of affirmative action, you know he's there for the right reasons.

You haven't really played devils advocate, you've just suggested a completely straightforward example that demonstrates why we'd rather not have the pictures as part of the hiring process.

Are you suggesting the employer never sees your face? This response makes no sense. They will see you at some point in the process regardless of whether it's on linkedin or in person at the interview. Physical appearance is part of life, it's no more discriminatory than refusing to hire stupid or mentally deficient people.

I'm suggesting that if our goal is to hire people based on their merits we should limit the extent that well understood bias influences the process.

as a software developer? It shouldn't matter. People shouldn't be discriminated for something like tattoos. Especially when software related stuff isn't as customer-facing as an actual bank teller