Automatic passport gates: your experiences

[zero]

See this thread on Flyertalk for more experiences: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/u-k-ireland/2045283-passport-never-works-egates.html

They are now flawless with both my passports after several years of 90% fail rates. I've not seen a significant queue at LHR for them now, which implies they are working much better.

There was some sort of change on the back end system in or around October 2024. As a result many people who were previously almost always rejected no longer experience any problems. This was reported on the above linked forum.

On one occasion at Gatwick a man popped out from behind a one-way mirror and told me to take my glasses off (I didn't wear glasses for the passport photo). I assume there is a small team there who can override anything that a gate hasn't been able to match.

Yes, sometimes the algorithm hands the task to a human officer. It may have changed recently but in the past one human officer was required for every 5 e-gates that were in operation. This was why you would sometimes see some of the e-gates roped off despite long queues. I'm not sure what the one-way mirror was, as you can see the human officers who are working the e-gates, they are in the cubicles behind the manual immigration desks.


Regarding my own experience, my passport never worked at the UK e-gates before 2018, despite working perfectly in Dublin and all over Schengen. That year on one of my frequent trips, as I was boarding a flight out of the UK I was detained at the gate and interviewed by some British government officials.

They were very excited thinking that they had caught a criminal (they certainly acted like it), however they then realised I was doing nothing illegal. After that trip my passport has worked in the UK e-gates every time.

A similar experience was reported here https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/1930260-word-fuzz.html though the trigger for my interrogation was something different which I will not reveal on this forum.

I also read on a forum that my experience may have been a training exercise for new hires (that is to say, they may have already known I did nothing wrong, but they found something that in some circumstances would be suspicious and this gave them a pretext to stop me). However that would not explain why my passport suddenly started working in the e-gates after this incident.

 

[The Ham]

I have no experience of e-gates (as I've got small children and have only travelled with them), however I don't like them.

The reason being is I've now got to queue for a very long time to get through passport control and everyone else who can get through far faster (even if they try a few times before getting rejected).

Having said that, I'm looking forwards to when my youngest is 10 and we can all use the gates and we can go through faster.

 

[signed]

The reason being is I've now got to queue for a very long time to get through passport control and everyone else who can get through far faster (even if they try a few times before getting rejected).

The reject queue is a lot shorter than the All Passport queues, it's better to try when you can IMO

 

[route101]

Never had an issue with them. Was kinda strange at Prestwick using a desk and talking to a real person at UK border.

 

[The Ham]

The reject queue is a lot shorter than the All Passport queues, it's better to try when you can IMO

Indeed at Gatwick those rejected were filed to the front of the all passports queue.

 

[zero]

(as I've got small children and have only travelled with them)

The reason being is I've now got to queue for a very long time to get through passport control and everyone else who can get through far faster (even if they try a few times before getting rejected).

The reject queue is a lot shorter than the All Passport queues, it's better to try when you can IMO

Indeed at Gatwick those rejected were filed to the front of the all passports queue.

I haven't arrived at Gatwick since I had a child but when I've arrived at the various Heathrow terminals, there has been a UK/EU queue for families with kids and e-gate rejects, separate from the non-UK/EU queue.

When a British citizen gets rejected by the e-gates there's no issue, but if EU citizens / Americans etc get rejected (or EU citizens using ID cards) then they usually get questioned by the officers for 5 minutes each while citizens have to wait.

 

[peteb]

Arrived at BHX Friday night 2145 from CDG. First off plane but long passport queues awaited me in the arrivals hall. However to my surprise the gates were behaving and virtually no one in front of me was rejected. The rejections queue was very short. I didn't take my glasses off, despite them being off for the passport photo, computer said "yes", green light and despite only one team running to train station still made 2216 to Wolverhampton. I don't like automated technology, and BHX gates can be a nightmare but on this occasion it worked well!

 

[Msq71423]

I've used E gates maybe two dozen times on my current passport arriving back in the UK, and other than the most recent arrival, ALL have said 'seek assistance'.

The difference on my most recent arrival, was that I didn't have my contact lenses in!

 

[matthewjohnson]

I've all of a sudden started having problems when returning to the UK, but never abroad. E gates don't work for me anymore. Today arriving at Leeds which has no e gates the bloke is about to give me my passport back then goes "oh wait a minute, have you got any other names?" Erm, no? He then gives me my passport back anyway. I love travelling but it's starting to put me off if I'm going to have trouble whenever I get back for no apparent reason, and who's to say it won't start happening abroad too?

 

[najaB]

Interestingly, I used the e-gates when leaving Colombia a couple weeks ago and had much less hassle than I've ever had in the UK. The only reason it took two tries is that they ask you to enter your flight number after the passport is scanned and I left off the leading zero.

 

[AlterEgo]

This seems a bit vague to me - I need glasses or contact lenses to drive, but I can see without them. I assume that the insinuation is no ’fashion’ glasses.

No, the statement means no glasses in your photo unless wearing them while it’s being taken is absolutely necessary. For example people with certain eye diseases.

 

[KnobbyGB]

I was always under the impression that the eGates checked the details of your passport (validity etc.) but the facial "recognition" was done manually. If you look, there's always a couple of border officials in a cubicle/booth just after the gates (in the UK at least) surrounded by loads of screens. I once had reason to stop to talk to them (at Newcastle) as my passport was slightly damaged and I wanted to clarify if they thought I should replace it. The booth there is lower down and more open that others I've seen (usually raised up for a better view I guess) and I could definitely see photos from the gates coming up on their screens and they were monitoring them between talking to me. It would make sense - the computers check there are no 'red-flags' on the actual passport then an agent just confirms the photos match. It is still quicker than doing it all manually. I've also noticed that if I arrive first at the gates, or when only one or two are in use, I usually get through in a couple of seconds but if it's busy (10 or 15 gates) it can take a lot longer to "recognise" me after my face is scanned. This kind of enforces my suspicion that it's being done manually. Perhaps it's just a manual-override thing for when systems aren't working properly, or perhaps they just check the ones the computer isn't 100% sure about, who knows. I think the hard-reject more likely means the passport couldn't be scanned. My old one NEVER worked and my new one ALWAYS does. The photos in both are remarkably similar (the damaged one was only 2 years old).

 

[Billy Hicks]

In fourteen years of using them (right from the very first time I used an e-gate at Gatwick in 2011, at a time when many still couldn't use them as they had the pre-06 chipless passports) I've barely had any issues at all, either in my old 2009-2018 passport or my current one. The last error was many years ago now, and looking at above posts I'm wondering if being a light-skinned male helps as it's usually extremely quick for me.

In general passport control is a lot quicker now than the godawful days of ten or so years ago when we'd be stuck in long lines for absolutely ages, in one occasion the queue going back so far we were all wedged into a tiny corridor in Stansted before we even got to the main room. A combination of the rooms being increased in size a fair bit and more e-gates being installed once the majority of western passengers had passports with chips in them. The only nightmare I've had in recent years was in early 2022 at Luton when a horrifically long queue took us over an hour, I'm wondering if this had to do with the then-recent invasion of Ukraine and extra questions for refugees needed, along with (or maybe solely because of) the staff shortages post-pandemic which were reported quite a bit at the time. I still got through quickly but my partner's was rejected for the one and only time, so she had to wait even longer in the reject queue.

 

[daveo]

.....

 

[_toommm_]

I've had a 5% success rate - it's worked once for me in the twelve holidays I've had in the past three years. My last experience at Manchester T2 wasn't great, with them insisting I had to use it and wouldn't let me out, even after it failing twice already - it was user error, apparently.

The annoying thing is how understaffed the manual control is - last time I had to be inspected by a person, it took me 45 minutes to get through as there were only two border force people and they both had difficulties understanding the people in front of me.