Charities warn UK's AI age-assessment plan for young asylum seekers could put children at risk

Lead

A coalition of more than 100 refugee children's organisations has warned that the UK government's plan to use artificial intelligence to assess the age of young asylum seekers could lead to more children being wrongly placed in adult prisons or detention centres. The warning follows a Home Office announcement of a contract worth £322,000 over three years to roll out AI facial age-estimation technology on asylum seekers whose age is disputed.

The technology, developed by Akhter Computers Ltd, will estimate an individual's age in seconds by analysing facial photographs already taken of small-boat arrivals at Dover, according to the Guardian. The Home Office has not yet commented in detail on the contract or the technology's accuracy.

Coverage Comparison

The Guardian reported the development in two separate articles. The first focused on the coalition's warning and the potential risks of the technology, highlighting concerns that trauma, under-nutrition and the harrowing journeys undertaken by young people could affect the accuracy of AI age estimation. The second article, published separately, centred on newly released Home Office data showing that young asylum seekers are more than twice as likely to be assessed as adults by immigration officers than by local authority social workers.

Both articles drew on the same underlying data and quotes from the Refugee and Migrant Children's Consortium, but the first emphasised the ethical and practical concerns around AI, while the second detailed the statistical disparities between different assessment methods.

Key Claims

• The Home Office has awarded a £322,000 contract to Akhter Computers Ltd to use AI facial age-estimation technology on young asylum seekers whose age is disputed, as reported by the Guardian.
• A coalition of more than 100 refugee children's organisations, coordinated by the Refugee and Migrant Children's Consortium, has warned that the technology could lead to more children being wrongly placed in adult detention, according to the Guardian.
• Young asylum seekers are more than twice as likely to be recorded as children in assessments by social workers than by immigration officers, according to Home Office data reported by the Guardian.
• Between July 2025 and March 2026, 4,320 initial age decisions made by immigration officials found just 1,363 new arrivals (32%) to be children, while 3,102 assessments by social workers recorded 1,198 individuals (68%) as children, the Guardian reported.
• The Home Office has established a national age assessment board (NAAB) with its own in-house social workers to conduct age assessments of age-disputed young asylum seekers, and is proposing to strengthen the weight given to its own in-house assessments, according to the Guardian.
• At least 141 age-disputed young people have been detained under the "one in, one out" scheme, the Guardian reported.

Perspectives

The Refugee and Migrant Children's Consortium argues that AI age estimation is too complex to be reliable, particularly for young people who have experienced trauma and under-nutrition. Their report, "Benchmarks and Borders", does not rule out AI altogether but says it should be advisory rather than determinative, with safeguards including access to an appropriate adult, legal advice and a right to challenge decisions. The consortium warns against replacing "human errors" with "machine error".

The Home Office, based on the data it released, acknowledges that initial assessments by immigration officers are typically made "at pace" with limited information, while local authority assessments often take six to eight weeks. The department is proposing to give greater weight to its own in-house assessments through the NAAB, which it says will improve consistency.

The government's broader policy context includes political accusations that adult asylum seekers are pretending to be children, which the Home Office says justifies stronger age-verification measures. However, the coalition and other critics argue that many genuine children from countries like Afghanistan, Sudan and Eritrea lack documentation, often because they never had it or it was destroyed, lost or taken during their journeys.

A report last year from the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, referenced by the Guardian, highlighted a decade of concerns about the Home Office's "perfunctory" visual assessments, finding that young people felt pressured into signing documents stating they were adults. Some children wrongly treated as adults have been charged with immigration offences, the Guardian said, though the scale of such cases has not been independently verified.

The Guardian's coverage quotes experts and organisations but does not include direct responses from the Home Office beyond its data release. The exact accuracy of the AI technology, its testing history, and the safeguards around its use have not been fully detailed in the available reports.