Outputs

Exclusion by design: digital identification and the hostile environment for migrants

How has the digitalisation of immigration status affected migrants in the UK?

This report presents findings from the Digitising identity: navigating the digital immigration system and migrant experiences project and makes recommendations to the Home Office.

It shows that migrants are experiencing high levels of stress, fear, and exhaustion while attempting to digitalise their immigration status within short and shifting deadlines. The report tells migrants’ stories of being denied entry to the UK based on technical glitches, oversharing of personal information including refugee status, and parents not being able to register their children. Migrants share a general sense of confusion, combined with worries of being unable to prove legal status and a deep fear of losing their rights.

Migrants in the UK are the first group to experience a mandatory digital-only identification system, effectively positioning them as a testing ground for broader national digital ID ambitions.

Recommendations to the Home Office include:

• Provide accessible support and multilingual guidance for migrants
• Protect privacy through data minimisation
• Provide non-digital alternatives to the eVisa system
• Create appeal and redress mechanisms
• Prevent unlawful status checks and casual surveillance
• Stop experimental technology use on migrants

Download the report – Exclusion by design: digital identification and the hostile environment for migrants

The researchers also made a submission to the Home Affairs Select Committee’s inquiry Harnessing the potential of new digital forms of identification (2025)

Read the submission by Open Rights Group and Migrant Voice, based on the Digitising identity project led by by Derya Ozkul (University of Warwick) and Marie Godin (University of Leicester)