Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an estimate of the number of (a) asylum seekers and (b) failed asylum claimants that have used multiple identities or aliases while in the UK.

All asylum claimants are subject to the Home Office’s mandatory security checks to establish and verify their identity, and to link it to their biometric details for the purpose of immigration, security and criminality checks. These checks are critical to the delivery of a safe and secure immigration system.

Applicants who seek to change the information they have provided at any stage of the asylum process – including their name – must submit a request to the Home Office to have their records updated. All such changes are closely scrutinised both to prevent fraud, and assess the credibility of the claimant.

Any changes must be formally reported and are logged in official case records. And even when an individual does change their name, their previous identity will remain on their casefile, linked to their new name and to their registered biometrics (facial image and fingerprints), mitigating any risks related to fraud or misidentification.

The Home Office has published guidance to explain the documentary evidence individuals (including asylum seekers) need to supply when they request a change of name on any digital and physical documents issued by the Home Office.

Use and change of names guidance - GOV.UK

UKVI identity standards (accessible) - GOV.UK

The Home Office does not centrally hold information relating to the number of requests for name changes, and could only collate such data at disproportionate costs through the manual review of case files held across multiple systems.