Privacy International filed a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office over the Home Office's collection and processing of information in immigration enforcement operations. The complaint targets two algorithmic tools used to process migrants' personal data: Identify and Prioritise Immigration Cases (IPIC) and Electronic Monitoring Review Tool (EMRT). The submission alleges the tools limit human involvement in decision-making and use "design nudges" that encourage case workers to accept recommendations with minimal scrutiny. The tools are described as highly intrusive and capable of processing sensitive health, family and GPS-derived data. Individuals are reportedly denied meaningful information about how their data is used. EMRT was used in over 1,700 quarterly monitoring reviews during an 80-day period in 2023, and both tools are estimated to have affected tens of thousands of data subjects.
The complaint filed on 18 August focuses on two algorithmic tools used for processing migrants' personal data, known as Identify and Prioritise Immigration Cases (IPIC) and Electronic Monitoring Review Tool (EMRT). The campaign group claims in a 94-page legal submission that the Home Office is using the tools in a way that limits human involvement in decision-making, and that "design nudges" encourage case workers to accept the tool's recommendations with little scrutiny.
Although such tools have the potential to improve accuracy and reduce costs, they are being routinely developed and operated behind closed doors with minimum transparency and safeguards, said Privacy International. It said the IPIC and EMRT tools are "highly intrusive" and could be used to process sensitive data provided to the Home Office relating to an individual's health, family and other relationships, and potentially data obtained from GPS tracking.
Collection
[
|
...
]