The UK’s Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) reportedly asked Open Rights Group (ORG) for information while setting inspection priorities, according to an account published October 27, 2026. ICIBI did not confirm a formal investigation into the Home Office’s use of AI in asylum casework.
What the Home Office’s asylum AI tools do
The Home Office uses Asylum Case Summarisation (ACS) to summarize asylum interview transcripts and Asylum Policy Search (APS) to find and summarize country-policy information. Both tools reportedly use OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Microsoft Foundry. The Home Office says trained caseworkers make asylum decisions and the tools cannot be used alone.
What the quality concerns involve
A pilot evaluation reported a 9% error rate for ACS. ORG separately said a significantly larger share of ACS summaries was unfit for use; the two assessments do not use an established common measure. ORG also said APS summaries had no quality control. The Home Office says it regularly monitors tool performance through its quality-assurance processes.
Facial age estimation is a separate AI use described for assessing disputed ages. ACS summarizes interviews, while APS searches country-policy information; neither is an age-estimation tool.
The Information Commission was separately investigating the Home Office’s refusal to tell ORG how staff use and are trained to use two AI tools, according to the October 27 report.
