The Home Office could be banned from unlawfully using computer algorithms to recommend whether migrants should be deported.

Privacy International has filed a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) over the Home Office’s collection and processing of information in immigration enforcement operations.

The move follows a successful complaint by the campaign group over the Home Office’s use of GPS tagging to monitor asylum seekers.

The complaint filed on 18 August focuses on two algorithmic tools used for processing migrants’ personal data, known as Identify and Prioritise Immigration Cases (IPIC) and Electronic Monitoring Review Tool (EMRT).

The campaign group claims in a 94-page legal submission that the Home Office is using the tools in a way that limits human involvement in decision-making, and that “design nudges” encourage case workers to accept the tool’s recommendations with little scrutiny.

The complaint comes as public sector organisations adopt more automated tools to assist or replace human decision-making. Although such tools have the potential to improve accuracy and reduce costs, they are being routinely developed and operated behind closed doors with minimum transparency and safeguards, said Privacy International.

It said the IPIC and EMRT tools are “highly intrusive” and could be used to process sensitive data provided to the Home Office relating to an individual’s health, family and other relationships, and potentially data obtained from GPS tracking. “Individuals are denied any meaningful information about how their data is used,” it said in the complaint.

According to Home Office figures, the EMRT tool was used to conduct more than 1,700 quarterly Electronic Monitoring (EM) reviews over an 80-day period in 2023. It is likely that both tools have been used to make recommendations on tens of thousands of data subjects, according to estimates by Privacy International.

“The potential harms arising from tools used across the immigration system at such scale include the potential for vulnerable individuals to be subjected to life-changing decisions. This may include detention or removal from the UK based on profiling and automated decision-making,” it said.

This means there is no way to verify the lawfulness and accuracy of processing or to challenge decisions, Privacy International claimed, arguing that the Home Office’s use of the algorithms breaches the UK General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018.

“Individuals lack any meaningful information about how their data is used, and where information is provided, it is inconsistent and contradictory,” Privacy International said in a statement.

“No coherent and comprehensive information is provided to migrants concerning what information the tools process and how it is used, including what consequences their deployment could have on decisions that may impact their lives,” it added.

Privacy International has asked the information commissioner to issue an enforcement notice to prevent the Home Office from collecting and processing personal data using the IPIC and EMRT tools in immigrant enforcement operations.

“These tools appear to have been deployed without sufficient safeguards to protect those subject to them, raising concerns as to whether the Home Office is adequately complying with laws regulating the processing of personal data in the UK,” it said.

A previous complaint by the group prompted the ICO to issue a formal warning to the Home Office over its use of GPS ankle tags to monitor the location and movement of asylum seekers who arrive in the UK on small boats and other unauthorised routes.

The ICO found the Home Office had failed to assess the intrusive impact of continuously collecting people’s location data and its potential impact on people who may be vulnerable because of their asylum status, their inability to speak English, or because they had faced difficult conditions travelling to the UK.

The Home Office has been approached for comment. 

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