AN artificial intelligence age estimation tool that aims to detect adult migrants posing as children will be deployed at the UK’s borders from next year, BBC News reported.

A software company has been awarded a contract to develop and test the technology, which would estimate a person’s age by analysing photographs of them taken at the border.

The report cited the UK Home Office as saying the technology would make it easier to identify adult migrants “attempting to game the system”, after initial testing indicated “promising performance and accuracy”.

However, the Human Rights Watch urged the government to scrap the scheme, describing it as “unproven technology” that would undermine the protections vulnerable children were entitled to.

New technology to be deployed from next year for strengthening asylum checks

Unaccompanied child migrants receive support from local councils and are housed in the care system rather than more traditional asylum accommodation such as hotels.

They are entitled to legal protections which can simplify the asylum application system and make it easier to stay in the country for longer.

According to the BBC, the decision to use the software comes after years of heightened levels of people crossing the English Channel in small boats and claiming asylum at the border.

Rising numbers

A total of 111,084 people claimed asylum in the UK in the year ending June 2025, 14 per cent more than in the previous year.

In the year ending March 2026, more than 6,400 migrants claiming to be children were age-assessed at the border, with 43pc found to be adults, according to Home Office data.

A report carried out by the UK government’s independent immigration inspector last year found cases where adult migrants had been classified as children — and cases where child migrants had been wrongly classified as adults.

The report said in the absence of a “foolproof” test, it was “inevitable that some age assessments will be wrong, which is clearly a cause for concern, especially where a child is denied the rights and protections to which they are entitled”.

According to BBC, the government announced plans to use AI facial estimation technology to combat this problem last year.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2026