Dear All,
Many thanks for weighing in to my queries on the subject, which is much appreciated!
Just to recap: I continued to try and received a message stating: Error: data corrupted. please capture this error and send to administrator. detail: "data"; ERROR:-999".
Finally I realized that when I initially took the photo of my PP, it came in upside down and that I had rotated it in the gallery on my phone. Apparently this was picked up as an "edited" photo of the passport. Took a new one and re-tried the process and apparently all good for now.
Hopefully this may help others who are as anachronistic with regards to mobile technologies as myself...
Stay well!