UK to use AI facial recognition to check asylum seekers' ages from 2027

The UK Home Office plans to use artificial intelligence facial recognition technology to detect adult migrants claiming to be children when they arrive at the border. The government awarded a contract this week to Harlow-based IT supplier Akheter Computers Ltd to develop and test the system. The software will analyse photographs taken at the border to estimate a person's age.

Rollout of the technology is expected to begin in mid-2027 after further testing and development. The contract costs £322,000 over three years. The system will first be trialled on live cases at Western Jet Foil, a processing centre in Dover, next year.

The Home Office says the technology showed "promising performance and accuracy" in initial testing. Minister for Border Security and Asylum Alex Norris stated that adult migrants "making false age claims have exploited the system and diverted vital support away from children at risk". He added: "That is why we are rolling out AI technology to put a stop to this, ensuring those who game the system are identified, detained and removed without delay, and those who deserve support and protection are given it."

Current age assessments are already carried out by trained immigration enforcement officers using documents, X-rays and MRI scans. The new facial recognition tool will support these officers when a person's claimed age is in doubt. In the year ending March 2026, more than 6,400 migrants claiming to be children were age-assessed at the border, with 43% found to be adults, according to Home Office data.

Human Rights Watch and other campaigners have strongly opposed the plan. Anna Bacciarelli, a senior AI researcher at Human Rights Watch, said: "The government needs to scrap this deeply flawed approach to assessing child refugees. Experimenting with unproven technology to determine whether or not a child should be granted protections they desperately need and are legally entitled to is cruel and unconscionable." She noted that the technology has been used in shops and bars but never in refugee processing centres, and stated there is "no ethical way to move forward with these plans".

A report by the UK government's independent immigration inspector last year found cases where adult migrants had been classified as children and cases where child migrants had been wrongly classified as adults. The report concluded that in the absence of a "foolproof" test, "it is inevitable that some age assessments will be wrong, which is clearly a cause for concern, especially where a child is denied the rights and protections to which they are entitled".

A total of 111,084 people claimed asylum in the UK in the year ending June 2025, 14% more than in the previous year. Unaccompanied child migrants are processed through the care system rather than the asylum system, which can make it easier for them to remain in the country.