‘Digital hostile environment’: AI secretly being embedded across Home Office, report claims

AI is being trialled in near-total secrecy, with officials routinely invoking national security to stonewall FoI requests, the report says. Photograph: Gary E Perkin/Alamy

AI has been embedded across the Home Office in near-total secrecy, reinforcing the so-called hostile environment for immigration, according to research.

Tasks from the detection of potential sham marriages to determining the age of asylum seekers and checking through the contents of phones of new arrivals now involve use of the technology, according to a report by Open Rights Group (ORG).