AI facial recognition to check age of asylum seekers from next year

Key Points:

• The UK Home Office plans to deploy an AI facial recognition tool in mid-2027 to estimate the age of migrants at the border, aiming to identify adults posing as children to access the care system.
• The software, developed by Akhter Computers Ltd, will be tested on live asylum cases initially at the Western Jet Foil processing centre in Dover, supplementing existing age assessment methods like document checks and medical scans.
• The initiative follows rising asylum claims and data showing that 43% of migrants claiming to be children were found to be adults, highlighting challenges in accurately assessing age at the border.
• Human Rights Watch criticized the scheme as relying on "unproven technology" that risks undermining protections for vulnerable children, while the government emphasizes the need to prevent exploitation of the asylum system.
• An independent UK immigration inspector's report acknowledged that no age assessment method is foolproof, with errors potentially leading to wrongful classification of adults as children or vice versa, raising concerns about the impact on migrants' rights.