UK Home Office envisages facial recognition for civil immigration cases

UK Home Office documents envisage using live facial-recognition watchlists for general immigration enforcement, including civil cases such as overstaying a visa or entering without permission. The policy excludes anyone under 18 from the lists.

The proposed scope goes beyond 3 trials conducted by Immigration Enforcement at Holyhead port in north Wales between November 2025 and February 2026. Those trials targeted people traveling from Ireland through the common travel area who were in breach of deportation orders or wanted on warrants for immigration-related criminal offenses.

The documents, first uncovered by Liberty Investigates, describe the project as having entered a formal delivery phase. A Home Office spokesperson said the department was considering further trials and exploring the technology’s potential future use. The department has not announced a nationwide rollout date.

Who could be placed on a watchlist

The guidance for immigration officials was published on 8 October 2026, and a data-protection impact assessment was made public later that month. The documents suggest that people liable to detention under immigration law who have failed to comply with conditions of entry or stay could be listed, as well as people subject to removal action.

Future deployments could take place at transport hubs and specific events expected to draw more people. The documents name no specific geographic location. The documents also list locations with “heightened community sensitivity” as potentially higher-risk deployments; the Home Office declined to clarify what it meant by events or sensitive locations.

The Home Office says locating undocumented people so their cases can be resolved would cause less disruption to the wider public than repeated enforcement visits to homes or workplaces. The documents followed Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s decision to double the immigration enforcement budget and increase its workforce by 60%, with the stated aim of enabling tens of thousands more raids, arrests and deportations.

Concerns over scrutiny and oversight

Griff Ferris, a spokesperson for the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said expanded use of what he called a racist mass-surveillance tool was frightening for migrant communities. He said Immigration Enforcement already used tactics that persecute and terrorize migrant communities. Campaigners also raised concerns about facial recognition misidentifying people of color in some settings. Sarah Lasoye of the Open Rights Group said Immigration Enforcement appeared to be expanding the technology without scrutiny, transparency or public consent. She said Immigration Enforcement and police were exploiting an absence of national legislation regulating public-sector use of AI technologies, including facial recognition.

The policy documents say external oversight includes the Information Commissioner’s Office and the biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner. But commissioner William Webster told Liberty Investigates he had not been consulted and that immigration use of facial recognition fell outside his remit.

Webster said the technology’s spread into different services raises questions about the scope of existing oversight. He hopes a forthcoming legislative framework for facial recognition will address them.