Not true as there're ex-Malaysians who've managed to register and use the eGates.
They may have their reasons who can and who can't, but I'd feel only those in the relevant office/s know the exact reason/s behind each applicant's rejection.
Those immigration officers behind the manual counters have their own job scope, and the eGate usage has next to nothing to do with them once they've done their part for the registration.
Just imagine how many SGeans are rejected by the eGates each day, then head to the manual counters to ask these officers for the reasons. After a while, unless their system has the reason (which I doubt), they can only guess from whatever information available to them.
Unless you can find your way into one of those offices, I'd say try if you can or wait if you can't. No one here can give you an official answer.
According to members of customs fb/telegram groups, there are many ex msians who cannot.
And there's a difference between being straight out rejected, and system error reject. There's 2 diff screens.
System error rejects often happen to the older machines. Many times is cause loading too long and time out. If kena 2 or 3 times, will show the straight out reject screen. Then you have to manual.
If name too similar to wanted ppl/convicts, exmsians, are straight out reject.
1 of my family kena straight out reject. We guess is cause name too similar to convict. True enough, coincidental or not, there are 2 ppl of similar names currently in jail.
And yes, there are ex msians that can also use egate. Noone knows why. Maybe how long ago they gave up citizenship matters
