To be worried about child’s passport

[passportquestion26]

I may be overthinking and worrying unnecessarily here, but we’re due to go on holiday in August (Majorca) - my 5 year old’s passport was issued in 2022 when she was 12 months old. it’s valid until May 2027 so we still have plenty of time left on it by August. My concern is the new EES system, as I know this involves facial recognition? Obviously my 5 year old now looks very different to the 1 year old baby on her passport photo! Will this matter? I’m unsure whether the EES system scans faces to compare to passport photos, hence my worry! We still have around 8 weeks before the holiday so plenty of time to update her passport if needs be! But first I wanted to ask if I’m worrying unnecessarily as I’m unsure if I’m misunderstanding the EES system?

I hope this makes sense!

There’s nothing to worry about. They don’t compare the face to the passport, they take a new photo at the passport desk when you register for EES. I’ve travelled twice recently with almost 2 year old DS, he looks like a grumpy potato in his passport picture taken at 2 months old. A bit of a struggle holding him up and getting him to look the correct way long enough for the camera to get a decent picture but we got there in the end (Heathrow coming back had a camera on a lead they could take down to him in the pushchair, much easier!).

Ps… children under 12 don’t have their fingerprints taken either, just the picture.

We just came back from Spain. They literally sent us through the ‘families’ line and just checked passports. No pics, fingerprints, etc for any of us!

We’ve just travelled to Majorca and the canaries and our 5 year old was told they didn’t have to do it.

We just traveled with 5yo who had a passport picture from when he was 2. There were no issues.
For kids you have to go to a desk with a person and they just have to take a picture (you can’t go through the e-gates with facial recognition with kids).

Also don’t worry, millions of small children travel every summer on the baby passport. DS looked nothing like his.

You might want to consider renewing early. My child’s first passport was issued at 6 weeks of age. This was before EES but when travelling with him at 4 years of age it was suggested to me by immigration officials at either end of my journey (EU and UK) that it might be time to get a new passport. The passport is technically valid for 5 years but separately the photo does need to be a reasonable likeness.

You don't need to worry about this. We just went to Malta with 2 and 4 year old who were both 0-1 in their passport photos and the machine couldn't get a photo properly and the person just said it doesn't matter