The Home Office wants AI to check every traveller entering the UK for threats
Key Points
- Home Office system Cerberus risk-assesses all 300 million passenger journeys into the UK
- It combines passport, visa, criminal, watchlist, airline and freight data
- BAE Systems holds a £38 million contract and total costs reach £241 million
- Machine learning is planned, and the Home Office refuses to disclose details
- Open Rights Group wants a public register of government AI tools
The Home Office has built a £241 million system to risk-assess all 300 million passenger journeys into the UK, according to Open Rights Group.
The digital rights campaign group detailed the system, called Cerberus, in a new report on how AI is spreading across the UK’s immigration system and borders.
Cerberus pulls together passport and visa data, criminal records, watchlists and data supplied by airlines and freight carriers.
It uses that information to flag people and goods as risks before they reach the UK, then issues targets for front-line officers to intervene.
BAE Systems Digital Intelligence won a three-year £38 million contract in February 2023 to develop the advanced risk analytics behind the programme.
A Home Office assessment from October 2024 put the total cost of Cerberus at £241 million, including £126 million of spending between 2024/25 and 2034/35.
The Home Office has already rolled Cerberus out to its first group of users, according to the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority.
Dominic Gallard, Director of Home Office Intelligence, said the BAE partnership gives the department a more data-driven way to identify and stop high-threat movements of goods and people.
Machine learning on the way
The Home Office’s 2022 tender for Cerberus described a system built around network analytics and, ultimately, machine learning.
Open Rights Group said it remains unclear whether Cerberus already uses AI, but the tender makes clear that it will.
The group said the system marks a shift from reacting to threats at the border to predicting them before travellers arrive.
It added that the Home Office has refused multiple requests to disclose basic details about Cerberus, with officials routinely citing national security to block freedom of information requests.
Cerberus sits alongside other AI border tools, including the facial recognition e-gates the Home Office trialled at Manchester Airport in October 2025.
That trial let British citizens pass through immigration without showing their passports, with officers only checking passengers the system failed to recognise or flagged.
“We urgently need transparency, accountability and strict regulation to restrict how AI is used and to prevent its wider rollout,” said Sara Alsherif, Migrant Digital Justice Programme Manager at Open Rights Group.
The group wants the government to create a public register of its AI tools, strengthen freedom of information laws and narrow its definition of national security.
