Originally Posted by
WorldLux
Not wanting to defend a DYKWIA here but I sympathise a little with him as UK e-gates seem to fail more frequently for me than those used by other nations. The fact that LGW/LHR attendants are pathetically useless just adds insult to injury: I'm blind as a bat and keep my glasses on until I have positioned myself correctly in the yellow circle and turned into the correct direction. I've been frequently shouted at by those attendants for not taking off my glasses the microsecond after I entered the e-gates.
My iPhone XS does better facial recognition than any e-gate / passport at LGW or LHR (LCY is always fine). One time at LGW the boarder patrol person couldn't even get my passport to read in their reader, was rubbing the Machine Readable Zone with paper, and everything. There is no physical damage what so ever to my passport. In the end he gave up and waved me through.