Secret Serco rating system for immigration detainees must be scrapped, say Greens

Serco’s ‘use of algorithms without oversight’ must end, says the Greens’ Nick McKim, after a Guardian Australia investigation found its SRAT tool was ‘unscientific’. Photograph: Naeblys/Getty Images/iStockphoto

The Greens have called for a security rating system used in immigration detention centres to be scrapped, following a Guardian Australia investigation that found the tool was “abusive” and “unscientific”.

The Security Risk Assessment Tool – or SRAT – attempts to calculate a detainee’s “risk” for behaviours such as violence, escape or self-harm. But lawyers, immigration insiders and successive government reports say the tool regularly rates people as high risk based on “unwarranted” escalations and errors – with serious consequences.