More than 100 children's charities have wanred new Labour plans to use AI to guess the age of arriving migrants could lead to serious failings. The Home Office have announced replacing people power with computers in order to try and estimate how old asylum seekers are when their stated age is in dispute.

The co-chair of the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium Kamena Dorling, called the government’s proposals "deeply concerning". And a new report, Benchmarks and Borders: the use of facial age estimation to assess the age of unaccompanied young people seeking asylum, warns against the blanket use of AI in favour of in-person human assessment.

Home Office figures show 6,420 age assessments were completed in the year to March. Of those, 43% of the migrants were later found to be adults despite initially claiming they were under 18. The Guardian reports the Home Office claim that AI will make the decision "in seconds," compared to a professional person, and that Akhter Computers Ltd has been awarded £322,000 over three years. It's reported in-person age assessments will be phased out in 2027.

According to the Guardian, the Benchmarks and Borders report highlights that AI should not be a substitute for the use of qualified social workers.

Kama Petruczenko, a senior policy analyst at the Refugee Council and member of the consortium, told the paper: “There is a real danger that this technology creates a false sense of certainty in decisions that are already extremely difficult to get right.

"If flawed assessments are simply automated, more children could end up wrongly placed in adult accommodation, detention centres or even prisons.”

However, the Home Office claims the new tech will make it harder for adults to make "false claims" about their age in order to seek preferential treatment in the system as children.

The minister for border security and asylum, Alex Norris, said: “For too long, adult migrants making false age claims have exploited the system and diverted vital support away from children at risk.

“That is why we are rolling out AI technology to put a stop to this, ensuring those who game the system are identified, detained and removed without delay, and those who deserve support and protection are given it.”

Final decisions will continue to be made by immigration officers, and the Home Office said the technology would undergo rigorous testing, evaluation and assurance before national rollout.