ORG report reveals extent of Home Office AI use for immigration

A new report by Open Rights Group (ORG) reveals the extent to which artificial intelligence (AI) has been embedded across Home Office operations in near-total secrecy, reinforcing and expanding the hostile environment policy for immigration.

The report, Automated Discrimination: Unpacking the Digital Hostile Environment, compiled from official Home Office disclosures, responses to Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) requests, and parliamentary questions, has cross-party backing, including Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, SNP MP Pete Wishart, and Green Party MP Siân Berry.

The findings highlight that AI systems are deployed across multiple enforcement and border operations. These include border surveillance via live facial recognition, autonomous foreign-built towers, drones, and satellites; predictive enforcement programmes such as the Cerberus project, which uses data-driven risk models to preempt unknown threats; the triage and assessment of claims through the Identify and Prioritise Immigration Cases (IPIC) platform; summaries of asylum interviews and country policy records; the searching of mobile phones belonging to irregular arrivals; asylum seeker age estimation; and automated red-or-green flagging systems for suspected sham marriages.

ORG warns that these technologies are inherently vulnerable to replicating societal bias and discrimination, arguing that successive administrations have adopted a techno-solutionist framework that reduces complex human migration to data points. ORG further notes that trials occur under strict secrecy, with officials citing national security to withhold information, and that independent research faces pressure. The report also highlights a growing strategic reliance on US and Israeli defence and technology contractors, contradicting ministerial calls for UK digital sovereignty, and points to the Labour government's ongoing failure to uphold an election manifesto promise to introduce a comprehensive AI Bill. As a consequence of the lack of regulation, ORG is calling on ministers to prohibit high-risk uses, such as ChatGPT models in asylum processing. The report also draws attention to the Home Office's refusal to register its AI systems on the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard Hub.

In a statement to The Guardian, a Home Office spokesperson rejected the claims, stating that AI is "just one of the tools at our disposal to protect our borders and does not replace or automate the role of human decision-makers." The spokesperson added that "Asylum decisions are made by trained caseworkers, with AI tools used only to assist in navigating interview records and policy information. They cannot be used in isolation and do not make decisions on claims. We regularly monitor the performance of these tools alongside our established quality-assurance processes and have already committed to publishing updated evaluations on their rollout."

In a further development following the publication of ORG's report, WIRED has revealed that the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) has requested information on the Home Office's use of AI tools to process immigration and may launch an investigation.

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