The Home Office has announced a new contract with Akhter Computers Ltd to implement Facial Age Estimation (FAE) in 2027 to support the initial age decisions of young asylum seekers made by immigration workers.

Social worker organizations, such as BASW, label this move as a ‘hunt for adults rather than a safeguarding responsibility towards children’.

FAE is trained on a system that identifies patterns from large quantities of facial photos from people whose age is known. However, more than 100 organizations have expressed their concerns with AI’s flawed visual assessments that may lead to increased numbers of children who are wrongly detained.

The decision to utilize FAE comes amid Home Office data showing that ‘in the year ending March 2025, more than 6,400 migrants claiming to be children were age assessed at the border, with 43% found to be adults’. Concerns have thus arisen over the subsequent redirection of essential resources away from child asylum seekers.

A report from the Consortium stresses AI should not serve as a replacement for the age assessments of social workers but should rather be used in an advisory way.

Human Rights Watch takes this warning a step further, characterizing the AI tool as ‘unproven technology’ and pleading with the Home Office to ditch its implementation.

Sam Baron, BASW Interim CEO, emphasizes the continued need for social workers in making age assessments, claiming that ‘a 16-year-old from Syria and an 18-year-old from Syria can look the same to AI, yet a social worker can consider their background and their life so far to identify maturity, and the best likelihood of their correct age’. The organization asserts that ‘BASW will indeed be a thorn in the Home Office’s side on these plans’ if they fail to consult first with key social workers.

AI implementation is not the only matter on the Home Office’s agenda, as this announcement comes amid further migration reforms within the U.K., such as restrictions on family visas for care workers.