MysoreBound

My old European passport never worked at LHR. An officer told me once it’s because I’m smiling in the picture (and by the time I’ve got to the e-gates I can’t get myself to smile anymore). It worked fine abroad.

mario

I also had a UK passport issued in 2016 and it also didn't scan.

​​​​​​I had it replaced with a new one by going online and selecting a replacement due to a damaged passport. I also included a letter detailing the number of times I attempted to go through egates and getting sent back. I got the replacement for free.

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oceanscape

How long ago was this? I assume you paid (in order to start the application) and then they refunded you?

Starship73

Mine always used to work fine at the e-gates, but hasn't worked on the last four attempts for some reason. Due for renewal next year so maybe I now look too old compared with my mugshot...

Schwann

You don't need to pay anything. Details below, but send the passport back with a covering letter. If it's indeed faulty they'll send you a form out to complete and the costs are covered.

When I did it earlier this year they paid for the new photo and all the postage costs - even the initial contact. So keep receipts.

https://www.gov.uk/government/public...ssport-readers

Horatio

Similar issue here. I have a 2017 passport and it has developed a fold at the inside edge of the photo page near the spine. I don't tend to have problems at airports other than LHR, at least that I remember, but there it's 50-50 at best, despite being extremely careful how I present it. Last time I passed through LHR even the lady behind the desk couldn't scan it, so not sure yet if another problem has developed...

ajamieson

It fundamentally comes down to the design problem of having a booklet style document which is then required to be carried everywhere and inserted repeatedly up to the fold into various machines. They either need to increase the space between the spine and the scan-able information, or return to the old system of having a single solid leaf insert for that information page so that it didn’t fold, rip or slide in scanners. But since the problem is experienced by the customer and not HMPO, I don’t suppose HMPO will ever fix it.

marconess

48% match? For some reason I assumed it was somebody in a booth hitting "YES" to faces, with the "live" photo on the left and passport next to it. I didnt realise it was an 100% automatic procedure.

DaveS

Has no one else looked at the two desks at the back of the immigration areas? The ones with the larger monitors. If you want to know the truth, it is worth a peep.

marconess

That's exactly what I was referring too!

Saladman

Ha ha, would be rather pointless having a guy in a booth doing it, you may as well do it the old fashioned method!

It's an automated process. A friend of mine is Border Force at T5 and takes his turn on the eGates every so often and was telling me about it.

Grace B

Based on my experiences, and discussions with BF officers, I'm not so sure that it is universally so.

DYKWIA

It's not automatic.

It was originally, but it became quite a story when a couple mistakenly used each others' passports, and were both let through by the automated system.

corporate-wage-slave

The system has been changed many times over the years. If you set the tolerance too high then at one extreme husbands and wives can swap passports and get through, which isn't great from a credibility point of view. Set it too high then almost everyone fails the machine when a ceiling light bulb stops working. If the machine spots a high conformance this is flagged as such to BF, so they typically whizz through since a skilled agent just clicks them straight through, whereas weaker matches get a different colour boundary on the screen and so BF needs to check more carefully. If there are a number of people in this category at the same time then your screen wheel may circle a slightly tedious number of times but eventually you get through. If this isn't done within the time-out period then you get failed and either have to try again or go to an officer, If there are a number of problem cases all at once then you may get failed just because there is a 30 second surge when you go through. But even in the current incarnation the facial matching can normally distinguish identical twins, so while I don't recognise that percentage, it is in any case a digital match formula, you can't relate it to what you see since the human brain works very differently.

I can more or less guess who will fail the e-gates when standing behind them. Either the technique is poor or they are not concentrating on the task properly. Unfortunately there isn't much training available to passengers for this.

BerksFlyer

My passport hasn’t worked the eGates at LHR T5 since I had it renewed in 2017. I’ve previously been told by a border officer that it’s because someone who is wanted has a similar name to me but I was never sure how true that was because it worked the eGates at other airports.

Imagine my shock and delight when I sailed through the eGates this week. Maybe they’ve caught my similarly named criminal?!!