Home Office use of AI in asylum decisions may be unlawful, legal opinion finds
Image of Robin Allen KC and Dee Masters
Cloisters Chambers’ Robin Allen KC and Dee Masters, together with Joshua Jackson of Doughty Street Chambers, have authored a legal opinion examining the use of artificial intelligence in asylum decision-making by the Home Office.
The opinion, commissioned by the Open Rights Group, considers the deployment of two AI tools: the Asylum Case Summarisation (ACS) tool, which generates summaries of asylum interviews, and the Asylum Policy Search (APS) tool, which summarises country-of-origin material.
The authors conclude that aspects of the current use of these tools are likely to be unlawful, including where asylum applicants are not informed that AI is being used in the assessment of their claims. The opinion examines issues of procedural fairness, transparency, data protection and compliance with public law duties, including the duty of inquiry.
It further considers the risk that reliance on AI-generated summaries may lead to decision-makers overlooking relevant material or relying on inaccurate information. The opinion also addresses the absence of publicly available information regarding the accuracy, evaluation and oversight of the tools.
The opinion suggests that, given the nature of the interests at stake, asylum applicants should be informed when AI is used and provided with access to AI-generated outputs.
The findings have attracted media coverage, including in The Independent.
Robin Allen KC and Dee Masters commented:
“Technology can assist decision-making, but it cannot undermine the careful human judgment required in asylum cases. Where AI tools are used without adequate safeguards, there is a real risk that unlawful or unfair decisions may result.
If AI tools are influencing asylum decisions, there must be full transparency about how those systems operate and how their outputs are used. Without that transparency, it becomes extremely difficult to ensure that decisions affecting fundamental rights are lawful and fair.”
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