The UK will scan asylum seekers' faces for age checks
The UK government will use facial recognition technology to estimate the ages of asylum seekers, aiming to determine if individuals are adults or children. The system, developed by a company called Yoti and tested by the Home Office, is intended to address concerns about adults falsely claiming to be minors. Critics have raised privacy and accuracy concerns about the technology.
Background
- The UK Home Office plans to trial AI-based facial age-estimation software on adult asylum seekers whose claimed age is doubted, aiming to replace less reliable X-rays or dental exams.
- Age disputes are common in UK asylum cases: if an adult is suspected of being a minor (and thus entitled to different, more protective treatment), authorities can order costly and ethically contested medical scans. The new system would use a photo or short video to estimate age.
- The technology, likely from a vendor such as Yoti or IDEMIA, estimates age by analyzing facial features; however, accuracy degrades for children near 18 and across different ethnicities or genders, raising fairness and bias concerns.
- Civil liberties groups argue that consent under immigration detention conditions is not truly voluntary, that the tool's error rate could wrongly reclassify minors as adults, and that the Home Office is expanding biometric surveillance without public debate or legislative change.