I’ve just been issued with a new passport, picked it up on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday I flew to Poland, and returned on Monday. At Bristol passport control it failed to scan in the automatic scanners, so i presented it to one of the boarder controls. He also had trouble scanning it, from what I can tell it didn’t scan with him. He ended up typing in numbers. He also studied it carefully, looking at it from all angles, looking very sceptical. Then looked at me, gave a shrug and nodded me though the gate.

Does anyone know if this is common? I’ve only had it for less than a week, and it has not suffered any damage etc. If its faulty can I get a free replacement somehow?

Ta in advance.

Are the scanners crap?

Yes.

Sounds like the chip is corrupted. I would send it back to the passport office, otherwise you’re going to get hassled and delayed everywhere you go for the next ten years. Don’t even think about visiting the USA!

mine often (usually) failed to scan

eventually one of the border control guys called his boss over who looked at it in more detail, and identified that 1 letter in the machine readable strip had a bit missing in the printing, and iirc it uses that optical character recognition as part of the key to decrypt the RFID part

took 9 years before an immigration officer did that

always used to go down the self-service immigration line, knowing it’d not work, because you then jump right to the front of a manned booth queue 😉

I’ve been told by a very stern Australian boarder guard that UK passports are the worst in the business.

I’ve managed to find an only query from. I’ve shot them off an email saying that I believe it to be faulty. Will report back.

Mine never scans but I still go through the auto scan route because you get called up to the desk and usually it jumpsthe queue. Didn’t work in the States either but they have more staff than we do.

Mine scans in the auto gates at Luton but fails in the manual scanners in Jersey! Doesn’t seem to be a problem when I come back to France, I don’t think they scan them….

Perhaps you have to use it manually once before the scanners will work for you?

Just wait till next year, you’ll have to buy a new one anyways.

In Blue..

Mine has a chip that failed because I kept sitting on the passport. It never scanned, so I just used to go straight to the manual desks. Far easier and only one person ever bothered kicking up a fuss.

But yes, the scanners are also a bit rubbish.

Yup, mine didn’t scan for about 3 years in UK, scanned fine in every other country. I guess we have a combo of shitty passport printers and shitty scanners.

mine often (usually) failed to scan

It’s a pretty common occurrence (see above) a Canadian customs official (like the Aussie up there) told me the same thing, if a passport is going to fail, 5 will get you 10 that’s it’s a British one.

At Bristol passport control it failed to scan in the automatic scanners, so i presented it to one of the boarder controls. He also had trouble scanning it, from what I can tell it didn’t scan with him. He ended up typing in numbers. He also studied it carefully, looking at it from all angles, looking very sceptical. Then looked at me, gave a shrug and nodded me though the gate.

Just had that same experience with the border guy looking at me like I was Osama Bin Laden and was thinking that my passport was fecked, but next time I went somewhere it was fine, so I’d suggest not panicking. Yet.

I reckon Border guards are all failed doctors receptionists. Absolute miserable know it all bastard!