Report claims AI is used across Home Office immigration work

A report by the digital rights campaign Open Rights Group (ORG) claims artificial intelligence has been embedded across the Home Office in near-total secrecy. The Home Office disputes the framing, saying AI assists caseworkers and does not make decisions. The Guardian reported the findings on 27 October ^[1].

What the report alleges

The report, titled Automated Discrimination: Unpacking the Digital Hostile Environment, says AI is now involved in tasks ranging from detecting potential sham marriages to determining the age of asylum seekers and checking the contents of new arrivals' phones ^[1]. It also lists border surveillance through live facial recognition and AI-powered drones and satellites, the summarising of asylum interviews and country policy information, and the prioritising and assessing of cases through a tool called Identify and Prioritise Immigration Cases (Ipic) ^[1].

ORG gathered its information from limited material published by the Home Office, freedom of information requests and questions from MPs ^[1]. It says officials routinely invoke national security to refuse or redact freedom of information disclosures, which it argues means AI is being trialled with almost no public scrutiny ^[1]. The report has cross-party support from Labour's Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the SNP's Pete Wishart and the Green party's Siân Berry ^[1].

The report argues that AI is not neutral or accurate and can replicate bias and discrimination, and it raises concerns about "reducing people to data points" ^[1]. Ribeiro-Addy said the department had been reluctant to publish documents explaining how AI is used in asylum processing and what problems have been found ^[1].

What ORG wants

The group is calling on the government to regulate AI and to ban uses it considers undemocratic or likely to risk human rights violations, including the use of ChatGPT tools in asylum applications ^[1]. It also wants stronger freedom of information laws, a narrower definition of national security and a public register of government AI tools ^[1].

The Home Office response

A Home Office spokesperson said AI is "just one of the tools at our disposal to protect our borders" and does not replace or automate human decision-makers ^[1]. The spokesperson said asylum decisions are made by trained caseworkers, with AI tools used only to help navigate interview records and policy information, and that they cannot be used in isolation or make decisions on claims ^[1]. The department said it monitors the tools' performance alongside quality-assurance processes and has committed to publishing updated evaluations of their rollout ^[1].

Why it matters

This is a dispute between two accounts, and the published evidence on each side is limited. That is itself the point of the report: without a public register of tools or detailed evaluations, outsiders cannot easily test either claim.

For businesses, the story is a reminder that organisations using AI in decisions about people, whether in hiring, lending or public services, face growing pressure to explain what the tools do, how they are checked and who is accountable when they fail. Keeping a clear record of where AI is used, and where a human signs off, is becoming basic good practice rather than an optional extra.

Source: The Guardian — 'Digital hostile environment': AI secretly being embedded across Home Office, report claims