Originally Posted by
LondonAussie
It's not just UK passports either, my Australian passport is rejected by the UK eGates, but is accepted in every other country I've tried.
My conclusion from this is that either
1. the UK eGates have a major technical fault, or
2. they are working as programmed and the UK have my name/passport on some sort of 'enhanced screening' list to force me to see an officer.
Personally I think being on a list is unlikely because I've been sent to 'seek assistance' from an officer many times and most have just swiped me through with very little interest or scrutiny. There's been the occasional exception of a few extra questions, but if I was on a list I would expect to get that 'enhanced' experience more often than not. Edit: And also because there's absolutely no reason I would be on a watch list, I'm very clean (boring).. I've never even had a parking ticket!
1. Extremely unlikely as many thousands of people - in fact the vast majority - use the eGates every day without any problems at all.
2. It's possible. It could be that you may have a similar name (perhaps sometimes with a similar or very common date of birth) which triggers the gate.
3. There are also other reasons. Technique, damaged passport (though you have two so it's probably unlikely that both are damaged), changed facial appearance so that the match isn't good enough (again you have a newer second passport so unlikely to be the case).
If you're happy it's not 3. and it's clearly not 1, then it must be 2. Which is clearly frustrating. Personally I think that the pink shirts (maybe immigration policy) should make more effort not to force people such as you - where you know you'll fail - into the eGates and allow them to go straight to a desk.