French guards detain novelist Jojo Moyes over border record
Moyes says an officer warned her of a €10,000 fine and a two-year ban; separately, a British holidaymaker was deported from Italy after a system error.
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Moyes says an officer warned her of a €10,000 fine and a two-year ban; separately, a British holidaymaker was deported from Italy after a system error.
French border guards detained novelist Jojo Moyes after a holiday and accused her of overstaying, while a British holidaymaker was separately detained at the Italian border and deported under police guard after a system error suggested she had stayed too long. The Guardian said the Italian case was reported by the Telegraph.
Both cases involve the EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES), which began rolling out in 2025 to replace passport stamps with biometric border records. It became operational at all Schengen border checkpoints on 10 April 2026. Some countries suspended it over the summer because of technical problems and staff shortages, returning to manual checks.
British short-stay visitors can spend 90 days in the Schengen area in any rolling 180-day period. If a departure is missing from the system, a traveler who has left can appear to remain there, reducing the allowance shown. Incorrect or incomplete records can also cause problems or denied access at automated border gates.
Moyes had spent 23 days in the EU over six months, but discovered that her departure from Portugal after a May trip had not been logged. She said a senior officer in Marseille warned her not to return until the record was corrected or she could face a €10,000 fine and a two-year ban. Neither penalty was reported as imposed.
Moyes said her attempts to correct the record had failed and she had hired an immigration lawyer. She still did not know how much time the system attributed to her or whether she could safely travel.
Jane Nolan said she and her husband spent 40 days in France from April and made no subsequent Schengen visits. Their passports were stamped manually when they returned to the UK in June, after French authorities suspended EES checks to prevent queues.
Nolan said the online allowance tool showed zero days remaining rather than the 50 days she expected. The couple put off booking another trip and asked French authorities to check their records; they do not know what went wrong or whether the result would affect them at the border. A warning from the tool is not itself a border refusal or penalty.
The UK Foreign Office said it was aware of reports of inaccurate records affecting British nationals, including incomplete records and the registration of people exempt from EES. It is raising the issues with the European Commission and advises travelers to carry evidence of when they last left the EU and raise anomalies with border officials.
Travelers can check their remaining allowance with their passport number on the EES website. To request a correction before travel, they can use the Travel to Europe data-protection page to find the responsible national authority. Dutch border authority guidance says to contact the authority in the country through which they last entered or exited, or which they plan to visit on a first trip.
The Royal Netherlands Marechaussee advises applicants to identify the relevant country and provide a passport copy and documents such as boarding passes or tickets showing their actual movements. It says missing system functions may prevent immediate corrections and that request volumes may mean the full statutory decision period of 45 days is needed for a response.
Which? Travel editor Rory Boland criticised what he called a lack of care and accountability toward travelers who risk detention and large fines for rules they have not broken. Julia Lo Bue-Said, chief executive of the Advantage Travel Partnership, said travelers should not be penalized for system failures outside their control and called for greater accountability and a straightforward process to challenge and correct inaccurate records.
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