The UK Home Office is moving ahead with plans to deploy AI-based Facial Age Estimation (FAE) at the border to assess the age of asylum seekers from around 2027, despite internal tests in 2025 that revealed reduced accuracy and racial and gender bias affecting people from Sub-Saharan Africa.
April 2025 Internal Report · UK Home Office
AI Will Guess Asylum Seekers' Ages From Their Faces — Despite Known Racial Errors
The Home Office plans a 2027 border rollout of Facial Age Estimation, even after its own tests on 2.5M+ images confirmed the technology is least accurate for Sub-Saharan African women — error wide enough to read a 13.5-year-old as an adult.
4.6 yrs
Largest mean error (MAE) — Sub-Saharan African women
2.5M+
Mostly high-quality document photos used in testing
40%
Of those assessed since 2010 classified as adults
2027
Planned start at the Dover border facility
The accuracy gap
Mean error nearly doubles for the worst-affected group
2.5 yrs
Best case
4.6 yrs
Sub-Saharan
Why it matters: a 4.6-year error can read a 13.5-year-old as 18 — and the system tends to push 17-year-olds over the adult line. Low-quality arrival photos make it worse.
The procurement, in brief
£322,000
3-year contract · Jun 2026 – May 2029
Cognitec
Germany, via Akhter Computers
Seconds
Faster & cheaper than bone X-rays or MRI
Critics — Halt it
61 organizations (incl. Foxglove) signed a June 2026 open letter to stop the rolloutTraumatized children should not be test subjects for experimental tech
BASW: AI is no shortcut — social workers should decide
Home Office — Press on
FAE is only an "additional tool" for immigration officers
The final decision rests with a human
Where uncertain, the person is treated as a child
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