ORG says AI is being secretly used by the UK Home Office — The Guardian

Human rights organization Open Rights Group said that the UK Home Office is privately introducing artificial intelligence tools into procedures related to migration, asylum and border control. The Guardian reports, citing the organization’s report, Automated Discrimination: Unpacking the Digital Hostile Environment.

Phone checks and case assessments

According to Open Rights Group, AI technologies are used to identify possible sham marriages, determine the ages of asylum seekers and check the contents of newly arrived people’s phones. AI is also used for border surveillance, including through real-time facial recognition systems, drones and satellites.

The report states that the tools are used to create summaries of interviews with asylum seekers and country policy information used as evidence in such cases. It also mentions the Identify and Prioritise Immigration Cases system, or Ipic, which is used to prioritize and assess immigration cases.

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Calls for transparency

The organization says that AI testing is taking place with almost no public disclosure, while officials cite national security when refusing to answer freedom of information requests or redacting disclosed data. The report’s authors believe that algorithmic systems may reproduce social bias and discrimination.

Open Rights Group called on the government to regulate the use of AI, ban undemocratic practices and applications that may pose risks to human rights, including the use of tools such as ChatGPT in asylum applications. The organization also demands stronger rules on access to public information, a narrower definition of national security and the creation of an open register of government AI tools.

The UK Home Office said that artificial intelligence is only one of the tools used to protect borders and does not replace human decisions. The department stressed that asylum decisions are made by trained specialists, while AI helps process interview records and country policy information. The ministry added that it regularly evaluates the performance of these tools and plans to publish updated results of their implementation.