"The Home Office knew an AI tool that will be used to check the age of small boat migrants was flawed but pressed ahead ...

"The Home Office knew an AI tool that will be used to check the age of small boat migrants was flawed but pressed ahead with its roll-out anyway, The Independent can reveal.The AI-powered technology, which predicts someone’s age based on their facial features, judges teenagers to be adults in error, according to a leaked report the Home Office tried to withhold.The secret report also found the technology is least accurate when trying to age migrants from countries such as Eritrea and Sudan – which have the highest number of small boat migrants coming to the UK – amid accusations that the technology has “baked-in racial bias”.It warned that error rates are particularly high for female child migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa, at 4.6 years on average – meaning a 14-year-old girl could be predicted to be an adult.The report, which was produced in April 2025 by civil servants in charge of the biometrics programme, also warned the tech could be less accurate for people with visible ageing cau...

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