Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration Report: Age Assessment Checks

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Written Statements

[The Minister for Border Security and Asylum (Dame Angela Eagle)]

In the immigration White Paper, published on 12 May, we undertook to improve the robustness of the age assessment process, including exploring scientific and technological methods to ensure that adults entering the asylum or immigration system are not wrongly identified as children, or vice versa. I wish to update the House on that work today.

Accurately assessing the age of individuals is an incredibly complex and difficult task, and the Home Office has spent a number of years analysing which scientific and technological methods would best assist the current process, including looking at the role that artificial intelligence technology can play. Since coming into office, this Government have commissioned further tests and analysis to determine the most promising methods to pursue further.

Based on this work, we have concluded that the most cost-effective option to pursue is likely to be facial age estimation, whereby AI technology trained on millions of images where an individual’s age is verifiable is able to produce an age estimate with a known degree of accuracy for an individual whose age is unknown or disputed.

In a situation where those involved in the age assessment process are unsure whether an individual is aged over or under 18, or do not accept the age an individual is claiming to be, facial age estimation offers a potentially rapid and simple means to test their judgments against the estimates produced by the technology. The quality of this technology has improved rapidly, and is continuing to evolve and improve as it becomes more widely adopted by online retailers, social media websites and other companies to conduct online age verification tests.

Early assessments suggest that facial age estimation could produce workable results much quicker than other potential methods of scientific or technological age assessment, such as bone X-rays or MRI scans, but at a fraction of the cost, and with no requirement for a physical medical procedure or accompanying medical supervision.

I have therefore commissioned further work to test and trial this technology, with testing due to begin later this year, and I have commenced a procurement process, which has involved market engagement, with an invite to tender to be launched in early August, so that—subject to the results of further testing and assurance—facial age estimation could be fully integrated into the current age assessment system over the course of 2026.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee for the work it has carried out since 2021 to support the development and analysis of options in this area. The Home Office will continue to consult closely with experts in the field as we pursue the facial age estimation method, and will also maintain an open mind as other techniques emerge or evolve that could provide an alternative in the future.

I am also today publishing the report of the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration into the Home Office’s use of age assessments, along with the Home Office’s response to the recommendations the inspector has made. This inspection was carried out prior to the Home Office reaching its conclusions on scientific and technological methods to support the age assessment process, as set out above, and does not therefore take into account either those conclusions, or the decisions I have announced today.

[HCWS885]