AI age checks coming to UK borders from 2027
Key Points
- The Home Office will introduce AI Facial Age Estimation (FAE) at the UK border throughout 2027.
- Akhter Computers won the contract, with Cognitec as a subcontractor providing the technology.
- FAE is not yet operational and rollout depends on further testing and validation.
- It will support initial age decisions at the border, with Immigration Officers making the final decision.
- Minister Sarah Jones confirmed the plan in a written answer to Labour MP Catherine West on child safety.
The Home Office will roll out Facial Age Estimation technology at the UK border throughout 2027, using AI to help officials assess the age of arriving travellers, Home Office minister Sarah Jones has confirmed.
Jones set out the plan in a written parliamentary answer on Thursday (4 June), responding to a question from Labour MP Catherine West about safeguards for children.
The department has awarded a contract for the technology to Akhter Computers, working with facial recognition firm Cognitec as a subcontractor.
Jones said Facial Age Estimation, referred to as FAE, has not yet been operationalised. She said further testing and trialling of the technology is planned, with implementation subject to validation and assurance of the results. Subject to those results, the Home Office will implement FAE throughout 2027.
The department’s current intention is to use FAE as part of initial age decisions at the border, Jones said. She said the technology is not intended to replace or automate the role of human age assessors.
For initial age decisions, Immigration Officers’ expertise remains critical to the decision-making, and they will make the final decision. Jones said FAE will act as an additional source of information to inform that judgement rather than replace it.
Why the Home Office is introducing the technology
Jones said assessing age is a complex task, and that no single technique or combination of techniques can determine chronological age with precision. She said the Home Office wants to improve decision accuracy and safeguard vulnerable people.
The minister did not set out figures on expected accuracy or the volume of cases the technology would cover.
West, the Labour MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet, tabled the question on 1 June. She asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps were being taken to ensure that the use of artificial intelligence for age-verification in Home Office applications would not increase incorrect decisions that could result in harm to children.
In response, Jones pointed to the role of human officers in the process, saying Immigration Officers would retain the final decision on initial age assessments at the border and that the technology would supplement their judgement.
She framed the planned testing and validation stage as the assurance step before any rollout.
The contract names Akhter Computers as the supplier, with Cognitec acting as a subcontractor to provide the Facial Age Estimation technology.
Jones said implementation across 2027 remains conditional on the outcome of the further testing and validation the department has planned.
She did not give a date for when that testing would conclude or when the first border sites would begin using the technology.
