Problem entering German with new UK biometric passport
 

I recently acquired a new biometric UK passport.

It works at the ePassport gate at Heathrow. But but it doesn't work when I enter Germany at Düsseldorf airport. Instead, I have to present it to passport control staff who inspect it before allowing me through. I had no such problem with my old passport with which I could use the ePassport gates at both Heathrow and Düsseldorf.

This isn't a serious problem. But does anyone know why this occurs?

Is it possible, and this is just a wild guess, that Germany's facial recognition doesn't work as well as ours?

I have the same problem in all German airports except FRA. My passport is a few years old though, and (except at FRA) the German border police have a lot of typing to do before they let me through, but they never say what the problem is. This doesn't happen anywhere else, and I successfully enter the UK and all other EU countries using the eGates 95% of the time.

Do you have an entry in the SIS database? It could be a simple reason like you lost a passport or national ID in the past...

https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/wh...tion-system_en

probably we start to give the Brits a post-Brexit feeling ;-)