Home Office use of AI in asylum decision-making at significant risk of being unlawful, legal Opinion finds

Doughty Street Chambers’ Joshua Jackson, together with Robin Allen KC and Dee Masters of Cloisters Chambers, have authored a legal opinion examining the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in asylum decision-making by the Home Office.

The opinion, commissioned by the Open Rights Group, considers the use of two AI tools by the Home Office: the Asylum Case Summarisation (ACS) tool, which summarises transcripts of asylum interviews, and the Asylum Policy Search (APS) tool, which summarises country-of-origin material (e.g. country Policy and Information Notes (CPINs), guidance documents, and Country of Origin Information (COI) reports).

The opinion raises a series of concerns, including with respect to asylum seekers not being told that AI is being used in their cases, inaccuracies in the outputs of the AI tools, the apparent absence of procedural safeguards, and the risks that reliance on AI-generated summaries may lead to decision-makers overlooking relevant material or relying on inaccurate information. 

The legal opinion concluded that the Home Office’s use of these AI tools in asylum decision-making did not conform with the principles in the AI Playbook for the UK Government and are at significant risk of being unlawful, in potential breach of the Secretary of State for the Home Department’s procedural obligations under Article 3 ECHR, various public law principles, data protection legislation and the public sector equality duty. 

The opinion provides a timely examination of the interaction between the use of AI by public authorities and their legal obligations.

The publication of the legal opinion has been reported upon in the media, including in The Independent.

The legal opinion is available on the ORG’s website here.