The government plans to use AI technology to verify the age of migrants who come in an attempt to prevent adults pretending to have children in the UK.
A report made by the government’s independent immigration inspector found cases where adult migrants were classified as children – and cases where child migrants were wrongly classified as adults.
But the refuge system makes it easy for children to apply to live and last year 56% of the migrants claimed that children were claimed or later evaluated adults or later admitted that they were 18 or more.
BBC News understands the government’s plans to use existing technology that were made for online retailers who sell age-related products.
Border security and shelter Minster Angela Eagle stated that AI is trained on millions of facial paintings and “was able to produce an age estimates with a known degree of accuracy for a person, which is unknown or disputed”.
Eagle stated that anticipation of the age of the face provides a “potentially fast and simple means” for testing decisions when assessing age.
Currently immigration officials and social workers have to assess the actual age of migrants claiming under 18 years of age, but both home office and independent immigration inspector have said that the correct assessment of an age is “challenging”.
David Bolt, an independent chief of Borders and Immigration, said that the absence of “silly test” of age was unavoidable that some age assessment would be wrong “.
In a sample of 100 case files, inspectors found that 38 people who were initially assessed as an adult by the house office, 22 later evaluated under 18 by a local authority.
The report of Mr. Bolt was prepared before the government announced its plans for AI facial recognition.
The government said that it would test the technique before a roll out in 2026. A tender for technology providers will be launched in August.
Similar technology is already used to verify the age of customers buying products such as banks and online retailers in the private sector.
The government is now encouraging companies who have led the technology to participate in a home office purchase process.
A senior source in the home office said that they expect “taking advantage of private sector power” by working with companies of “investing in it in Arabs”.
The previous orthodox government presented a plan to examine the bones and teeth of some migrants to verify its age.
But labor ministers are considered doubt about the plan as it depended on taking people to different facilities and instead wanted a verification system that could be used on the border.
The risk of safety of a child in Mr. Bolt’s report was incorrectly assessed, to share a room with an adult stranger to be an adult – as well as an adult was wrongly evaluated as a child to be wrongly placed with other children.
The inspector highlighted the case of the arrival of a male small boat, claiming that he was 17 years old, who assessed 22 due to physical characteristics such as his “deep voice”, “fully developed facial structure” and “thick black stubble”.
He criticized the use of the house office of “general physical characteristics” and “failed to take into account the personal circumstances of the young person”.
The report also stated that some migrants were signing the “age statements of age”, without understanding what they were signing after their long and often-frequent travel. Due to this, the age became disputed later.
The report also criticized the “lack of curiosity” of immigration officers about age assessment decisions, which later overturned and that no lesson was learned.
The government has accepted all the eight recommendations of Mr. Bolt in its report, including increasing training for immigration officers and improvement in communication.
The Chief Executive of the Refugee Council, Anver Solomon, said that he was “not confident” that was the right approach to use AI devices.
He said that the inspector’s report highlighted concerns about the children being put under unsafe situations and said “these technologies raise serious questions about accuracy, morality and fairness”.
