Charities decry UK plan to use AI to assess age of young asylum seekers | Immigration and asylum
Controversial plans to use artificial intelligence to determine the age of young asylum seekers could lead to more children being mistakenly sent to adult prisons or detention centres, a coalition of more than a hundred refugee children’s organizations has said.
The warning follows the Home Office’s announcement on Friday of a contract to roll out AI facial age estimation technology to young asylum seekers whose ages are disputed.
A report from the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium, reviewed by the Guardian before publication in June, sounds the alarm about the risks of using such technologies on young people who do not conform to the norms of others in their age group.
The consortium, whose member organizations work to promote and protect the rights of refugee and migrant children, says trauma, malnutrition and the difficult journeys young people undertake to reach safety mean AI assessment is complicated.
The report – Criteria and Limits: using facial age estimation to assess the age of unaccompanied young people seeking asylum – does not completely rule out the use of artificial intelligence, but warns against relying on it and says it should not replace comprehensive age assessments carried out by social workers.
It encourages the Home Office to use AI in an advisory rather than a predictive capacity, with a range of protections built in, including access to an appropriate adult, legal advice and the right to appeal decisions.
It urges the government not to replace human errors made in some age assessment cases with machine errors.
Age assessments of this group of young people are complex, particularly as the majority of lone child asylum seekers arriving in the UK are aged 16 or 17. Young asylum seekers are twice as likely to be registered as children when assessed by social workers than when assessed by immigration officers at the border, and more than two-thirds are considered underage, Home Office data shows.
The Home Office announcement places significant emphasis on adults making “false claims”, pretending to be children and trying to “game the system”, but also recognizes the need to protect minors.
Border Security and Asylum Minister Alex Norris said: “For too long, adult migrants making false age claims have abused the system and diverted vital support away from children at risk.
“That’s why we’re deploying AI technology to put an end to this, ensuring that those gaming the system are identified, detained and removed without delay, and that support and protection is given to those who deserve it.”
Final decisions will continue to be made by immigration officers and the Home Office said the technology would undergo rigorous testing, evaluation and assurance before being rolled out for national use.
Kamena Dorling, Co-chair of the Refugee and Migrant Children Consortium, said: “The government’s proposals are extremely worrying. AI cannot account for factors that can significantly affect a young person’s appearance after fleeing conflict and persecution and embarking on dangerous journeys, including trauma, malnutrition and exhaustion.”
“Current evidence also suggests that AI faces issues related to bias and inaccuracy, similar patterns of error, as humans do in decision-making.”
Kama Petruczenko, senior policy analyst at the Refugee Council and consortium member, said: “The government’s own figures show that hundreds of children are already being mistakenly treated as adults following faulty visual assessments at the border, with devastating consequences for their safety and wellbeing.
“AI and facial age estimation technology are not a simple or risk-free answer to these long-standing problems. Poor image quality and bias in datasets can also impact accuracy.
“There is a real danger that this technology will create a false sense of certainty in decisions that are already extremely difficult to get right. If inaccurate assessments are simply automated, more children could be mistakenly placed in adult accommodation, detention centers and even prisons.”
The Home Office said the artificial intelligence would estimate an individual’s age within seconds by analyzing facial photographs already taken by small boats arriving at Dover. Akhter Computers Ltd was awarded a contract for work worth £322,000 over three years; Under this contract, the technology will be further tested and developed before being launched in 2027.
