On 18th June, reports surfaced that immigrants’ right campaigners will challenge the Home Office’s artificial intelligence system that filters UK visa applications. A first court case of its kind in British legal history, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) attempts to terminate what they claim is a decision-making algorithm that creates a “hostile environment” for people applying for UK visas online.
Granted a judicial review to challenge the Home Office’s, they believe that the AI programme is designed to discriminate against applicants from certain nations.
In their submission to the high court the JCWI said the algorithm created three channels for applicants including a “fast lane” that would lead to “speedy boarding for white people” to enter the country.
The rights group said applications from people holding suspect nationalities received a higher risk rating. These applications were subjected to far more intensive scrutiny by Home Office officials, took longer to reach a decision and were much more likely to be refused, the JCWI said. It claims that this results in racial discrimination and therefore breaches the 2010 Equality Act.
The Home Office has refused to provide the JCWI with meaningful information about the algorithm in their pre-legal action correspondence. In a statement to The Guardian, Chai Patel, the JCWI legal policy director, said,
“The Home Office’s ‘streaming tool’ has for years had a major effect on who has the right to come here to work, study or see loved ones. And it has been run in a way that, by the Home Office’s admission, discriminates, singling out some people as ‘suspect’ and others as somehow more trustworthy, just because of where they come from. This is the digital hostile environment.”
