Home Office urged to break with ‘toxic record of failure’ over AI use in asylum claims

Become an Independent member to bookmark this article Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today. Join today Already a member? Log in The Home Office has been urged by MPs to break with its “toxic record of failure” and end the “near total secrecy” of how AI is being used in the immigration system. Artificial Intelligence (AI) programmes are currently being used in the processing of asylum claims, and tools are being developed to predict the age of small boat migrants based on their facial features.

Spot-checks carried out within the Home Office on the use of AI to summarise interview transcripts with asylum seekers found that the tool was failing basic accuracy tests, The Independent revealed this month. Campaigners, who are researching how AI has been embedded in the UK’s immigration system, have accused the government of stonewalling information requests and releasing limited details of how the technology is being used. Cross-party MPs are also pushing the Home Office for transparency, saying officials were dodging accountability.

Labour MP, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, said: “The Home Office must publish the equality and data protection assessments it has made, explain how staff are inducted and trained to use these tools, and allow independent validation of how well they perform. “At present, asylum seekers are not even told when AI has been used to summarise their cases. The Home Office should not be using AI in decisions this fundamental to people’s lives until it can show the tools are accurate, that proper safeguards are in place, and that it can explain clearly how they are used.”

In a report published on Tuesday, the Open Rights Group (ORG) documented the way AI has been used so far in the Home Office. The report says the technology is being used to surveil borders through live facial recognition, power drones and satellites, build programmes that could pre-empt unknown threats, estimate the age of people seeking asylum, asylum case processing, to sift through migrants’ mobile phones, and to automatically flag potential “sham” marriages.

AI is also being used to prioritise immigration cases, the report reveals. open image in gallery Thousands of AI summaries of asylum interviews are generated each month ( Getty/iStock ) Sara Alsherif, programme manager at the ORG, said: “We urgently need transparency, accountability and strict regulation to restrict how AI is used and to prevent its wider rollout”. SNP MP Pete Wishart added: “There is an important question of accountability.

If an asylum seeker believes that an AI system has made a mistake, they need to be able to know that the technology was used and have the chance to challenge its output”. Green Party MP, Sian Berry, warned that use of AI should be “subject to clear laws founded in human rights and fairness, with decisions subject to scrutiny and challenge.” open image in gallery Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy has been pushing the government for more transparency on the use of AI in the immigration system ( PA Archive ) The Independent revealed earlier this year that lawyers at Cloister Chambers and Doughty Street Chambers had argued the Home Office’s use of AI is “likely to be unlawful” as it does not meet a number of legal obligations nor the standards set out in the government’s AI playbook.

These include being transparent with the public about how AI is being used and making sure alternatives are considered before using these tools. AI is currently being used to summarise transcripts of interviews with migrants making asylum claims. Caseworkers can then use these summaries to inform their decisions. Around 7,000 AI summaries are being generated per month on average, but it is up to the decision-makers whether they use them.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Use of Artificial Intelligence 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. “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 roll out.”