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The British government plans to introduce facial age estimation technology at its border as early as next year to help determine the ages of asylum seekers — believed to be the first deployment of this kind anywhere.
An investigation by WIRED, Lighthouse Reports, and The Independent obtained an internal government report showing the AI systems regularly misclassify children as adults and carry bias problems that fall hardest on the largest group of migrants subject to age assessments in 2025, according to Home Office data.
What Is at Stake at the Border Many asylum seekers arriving in the United Kingdom carry no documents proving their age.
That gap has legal weight: children incorrectly classified as adults can be stripped of legal protections that apply specifically to minors and placed in adult-only detention centers.
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