All Articles: digitisation
Quietly passing statutory instruments is no way to legislate on migrants’ rights
A new law preventing migrants from using their residence permits to prove their right to rent or work in the UK is coming into force without robust parliamentary debate. From 6 April 2022, no migrant in the UK will be able to use their biometric res ...
5th April 2022Changes to right to work checks from 6 April 2022
Employers who want to avoid the possibility of a fine for hiring an unauthorised migrant are well advised to carry out right to work checks. Such checks are not mandatory, but where companies do carry them out, the Home Office advises that “all ...
20th January 2022Home Office conceding 30% of appeals, Pres says
The Home Office is now conceding three out of every ten immigration appeals before the hearing, a senior immigration judge has said. Michael Clements, President of the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber), puts the cheerful stat down t ...
23rd September 2021How electronic travel authorisations could harden the Irish border
The Nationality and Borders Bill 2021 has lain dormant over the summer but will be taken up again once Parliament returns on 6 September. Down in the miscellaneous provisions is a requirement for people entering the UK without a visa or British/Irish ...
1st September 2021Home Office refuses to explain secret sham marriage algorithm
The Home Office has rebuffed Public Law Project’s (PLP) latest attempt to find out more about the secret algorithmic criteria used to decide whether a proposed marriage should be investigated as a “sham”. Sham marriage investigatio ...
21st July 2021Illegal working checks must adapt to the work-from-home age
All being well, the government’s advice to work from home should be lifted from 21 June. With offices filling up, and city streets bustling, normal working life is already starting to resume. But remote working patterns are clearly popular with work ...
1st June 2021New Plan for Immigration 2: Electronic Boogaloo
The Home Office published a New Plan for Immigration “strategy statement” earlier today. It is mostly about legal immigration and economic migrants, as opposed to the New Plan for Immigration document published in March that focused on ill ...
24th May 2021Why the migrants’ rights sector should care about big data
Last month, UN special rapporteur on racism Professor Tendayi Achiume raised concerns about the impact of digital technologies on human rights. Achiume’s comments come at a time when governments are relying more and more on digital tools to control ...
21st December 2020Online Right to Rent checks launch later this month
Right to Rent checks can be carried out online and in real time from 25 November 2020 onwards. Under the new scheme, landlords will be able to conduct checks on whether prospective tenants are permitted to rent using a Home Office webpage (not yet liv ...
9th November 2020Digital-only status for EU citizens “creates a real risk of harm”, experts warn
Digital-only residence permits could make it harder for migrants to access vital services like jobs and housing, a new report warns. Landlords and employers used to physical passports and residence permits may discriminate against migrants whose proof ...
1st October 2020Government to “redesign” controversial visa algorithm
Earlier this year JCWI, with the help of Foxglove, launched a legal challenge against the Home Office over its use of an algorithmic “streaming tool” that assigned risk categories to visa applications. The tool, previously covered on Free ...
4th August 2020Legal aid changes for online immigration appeals “will do irreparable harm”
Immigration lawyers are warning that changes to legal aid for appeals lodged online during the coronavirus pandemic “will do irreparable harm”. The Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA) says that adjustments to legal aid ...
19th May 2020How I got the Home Office to fix its online application forms
You’ve met with your client, taken detailed instructions and advised them on the intricacies of the Immigration Rules, the maze of policy guidance and possibly even made highfalutin’ reference to case law relevant to their situation. Now you ...
6th March 2020Public must be told how controversial visa streaming tool works, immigration inspector says
The Home Office should release more details about a “cryptic” computer programme that scores visa applicants as high, medium and low risk, the immigration inspector has recommended. David Bolt says that while applicants labelled high risk ...
6th February 2020EU Settlement Scheme ushers in a new era of automated decision-making at the Home Office
In the fraught context of Brexit, the need to register EU citizens already resident in the UK presents a major conundrum of policy, law, and administration. The government’s answer is the EU Settlement Scheme. It is expected that millions of peo ...
16th July 2019“Computer says no”: facing up to the full implications of a digitised immigration system
In addition to the deluge of new Immigration Rules and legislation we faced in the May years, and now the looming Brexit iceberg, a major (if inevitable) change of recent times has been the digitisation of immigration applications. Unlike with Rules a ...
8th January 2019Why is the immigration tribunal so uniquely impervious to modernity?
In a recent determination, the President of the Upper Tribunal suggested that documents and submissions could be sent electronically to the tribunal in order to facilitate efficient justice: …parties and their representatives are strongly encour ...
26th February 2015