I landed in Frankfurt last week and proceeded directly to the EasyPass lanes. It was my first attempt at entering Germany with my new trusted traveler credentials obtained a few weeks prior.
image: easypass.de
The machine read my passport, but I received an red error message stating this line was only for EU/CH passports. I tried a few more times and received the same message each time.
I returned to the regular line, which thankfully was not that long, and was soon stamped into Germany. With a bit of time on my hand before my first meeting, I headed directly to the EasyPass office at the airport to check on why I ran into issues.
The uniformed border security agent took one look at my passport and said:
“It’s too thick.”
I’ve never heard my passport described in that way before…
He went on to explain, all in German, that my passport is “larger than normal” and that causes the machine problems when reading the biometric chip. “Thick” passports routinely cause these sorts of issues, he explained. The solution was to hold the passport firmly down, perfectly centered inside the reader. He verified that my EasyPASS credentials were valid in the system.
Perhaps I’ll have a chance to try to it again later in the week.
> Read More: Quick And Easy: Joining German EasyPASS “Global Entry” Program
Mine doesn’t work because my chip isn’t working anymore, probably made in China!
Not bad, who knows what your [expletive removed by admin] Government does with your data…
I have a thick one but now on its last legs after a relatively short time, albeit with many stamps. Why don’t they implement biometrics for these schemes? Surely it’s faster and less open to fraud than the traditional passport…after all, ‘they’ know everything about where we’ve been and about any risk/threat/downside in letting us in/out.
Bwahahahaha! Details? If only this were a different kind of blog…
I had a similar issue in Germany – the wife’s worked fine, but mine has the extra pages and their reader really doesn’t like that it seems, they told me the same thing (got it to work, just took tries and a little help)
Don’t you have a German passport? I have a EU passport and it is life saver as I travel to Europe once a month for work. I only use my US passport to check in when flying back home.
Ben does, I don’t. Wish I did. Need to live in Germany seven years to get that.
God stay away when you only want our passport for your personal benefits and not because you love Deutschland. We have enough of you already here…
You have no idea.
I had the same problem and got the same explanation from the German customs officer. Apparently if you have too many extension pages added to your passport the German passport readers don’t like it? I tried the whole “hold down firmly” on the scanner and it didn’t work either….
I have tried a dozen times, reverified that my registration is correct, but have not once gotten it to work. And the time I’ve wasted trying is almost always longer than the actual lines.