Discriminatory automated digital identity status check services
Open Rights Group, Migrants’ Rights Network and Migrants At Work sought to determine how a test claim could be brought to challenge the Home Office’s use of automated digital identity checking services. These digital ‘Right to Work’ checks, and the technologies that underpin them, harm migrants by entrenching racial bias, discrimination and violation of their data rights in the employment process. Due to flawed data and technical glitches, many migrants have even been made destitute because the digital service displays false negatives and their employers are told, incorrectly, that they cannot be employed.
Despite amassing a solid evidence base, the coalition ultimately decided against pursuing litigation. It was decided that, even if the litigation were successful, the only remedies available through the courts would do little to overhaul the broken system. The evidence collated and the relationships formed through this project have, however, significantly contributed to the sector’s understanding and response to the UK’s new eVisa scheme, which leverages the same technologies and infringes people’s rights in similar ways.
Discriminatory automated digital identity status check services
Organisation Name
Open Rights Group, with Migrants’ Rights Network and Migrants at Work
Country/Jurisdiction
United Kingdom
Amount Granted
EUR 49,220
Current Status
Research complete; litigation not pursued
Image credit: Kit (formerly ConvertKit) on Unsplash
Grant type
Pre-litigation Research Support
Description
Open Rights Group, Migrants’ Rights Network and Migrants At Work sought to determine how a claim could be brought to challenge the Home Office’s use of automated digital identity checking services. These digital ‘Right to Work’ checks, and the technologies that underpin them, harm migrants by entrenching racial bias, discrimination and violation of their data rights in the employment process. Open Rights Group state that due to flawed data and technical glitches, many migrants have even been made destitute because the digital service displays false negatives and their employers are told, incorrectly, that they cannot be employed.
The aims of the research were:
• to complete an evidence-based assessment of the identity-checking service used by the Home Office, including case studies;
• to prepare a litigation strategy informed by counsel opinion, including appropriate forum for litigation and selection of potential claimants, and;
• to facilitate learning exchange between the digital rights, legal and migrants’ rights sectors around the use of automated decision-making technology and how to challenge it.
Despite amassing a solid evidence base, the coalition ultimately decided against pursuing litigation. It was decided that, even if the litigation were successful, the only remedies available through the courts would do little to overhaul the broken system. The evidence collated and the relationships formed through this project have, however, significantly contributed to the sector’s understanding and response to the UK’s new eVisa scheme, which leverages the same technologies and infringes people’s rights in similar ways.
"These digital ‘Right to Work’ checks, and the technologies that underpin them, harm migrants by entrenching racial bias, discrimination and violation of their data rights in the employment process"
Strategic Goal
To ensure that new automated status checking services do not replicate existing technical failures, bias, and discrimination, and do not violate data protection and equality rights.