‘Digital hostile environment’: AI secretly being embedded across Home Office, report claims
AI has been embedded across the Home Office in near-total secrecy, reinforcing the so-called hostile environment for immigration, according to research by Open Rights Group.
Tasks from detecting potential sham marriages to determining the age of asylum seekers and checking phone contents now involve AI technology, according to the report titled 'Automated Discrimination: Unpacking the Digital Hostile Environment'. The technology is also being used for border surveillance through live facial recognition and AI-powered drones and satellites.
Secret deployment
The report criticizes the near-total secrecy surrounding AI deployment, with officials routinely invoking national security to stonewall freedom of information requests and redact disclosures. Successive governments are accused of pushing an ideology that reduces complex human cases to a technical problem.
Relying on AI to decide who gets to stay here and who is thrown back into danger is a deeply alarming move.
Bias concerns
The report raises concerns about AI replicating bias and discrimination within society, particularly when used for anti-immigration purposes. It warns about "reducing people to data points" and replicating the hostile environment first envisaged by Theresa May in 2012.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy criticized the Home Office's reluctance to publish documents explaining how AI is used in asylum processing: "The department has not explained how it will ensure there is accountability when they fail or justified why some of the most vulnerable people, with the least power, should bear the greatest risks."
Government response
A Home Office spokesperson defended the technology: "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."
The ORG is calling on the government to regulate AI and ban uses that risk human rights violations, as well as demanding more transparency and a public register of government AI tools. Sara Alsherif emphasized: "Migration is a human phenomenon and experience, not a technical problem that can be fixed by artificial intelligence."
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