Charities decry UK plan to use AI to assess age of young asylum seekers
TL;DR
More than 100 refugee organisations warn that a UK plan to use AI facial age estimation on young asylum seekers could push more children into adult prisons or detention centres. The coalition's warning follows a Home Office announcement of a contract to roll out the technology in cases where an asylum seeker's age is disputed.
Nauti's Take
AI-assisted age estimation could ease the load on overstretched authorities and replace gut-feeling judgments with more consistent procedures, so there is real potential. But the risk is serious: face-based estimates are error-prone, and a single mistake can land a child in adult detention.
Nauti's view is that tools like this may assist at most, never decide alone, because without human oversight and a right to appeal the harm outweighs the benefit.
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