A new report by digital rights campaigners, Open Rights Group, has warned that the Government’s e-Visa scheme could lead to a digital Windrush scandal where people who have the right to be in the UK are unable to prove it, with life-changing consequences. E-Visas: Hostile and Broken identifies flaws in the scheme’s design, rollout and implementation and recommends that the Government stops the scheme before it comes into effect on January 1, 2025.

ORG’s findings are supported by research by Dr Kuba Jablonowski, lecturer in digital sociology at the University of Bristol and Monique Hawkins of the3million, the grassroots organisations for EU citizens in the UK.¹ Their analysis of the operation of the new, digital-only and online-only proof of status. published in the current issue of the Journal of Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Law, demonstrates that status errors are systemic features of the online design adopted by the Home Office.

About the e-Visa scheme

Migrants from outside the EU have physical documents to prove that they and their families could live, work or study in the UK. These can be physical cards, such as Biometric Residence Permits (BRPs) or Biometric Residence Cards (BRCs), or stamps or stickers in people’s passports. The Government wants to replace all these with a digital status that is generated every time someone has to prove their immigration status. People needing to prove their immigration status will need to create a UKVI account by 31 December 2024 to be able to access this digital status.

E-Visas were first tested and implemented through the EU Settlement Scheme, the immigration system set up for EU citizens who were residents in the UK before Brexit, and their family members.

Problems with the e-Visa scheme

Flawed design

• The term e-Visa is misleading. People will not be issued with a digital visa that they can store on their devices to be used as and when they need to prove their status. Instead they have to register for an account that will allow them to generate a new online status each time it is required. As users don’t have a physical or saved digital proof of status, they are susceptible to data errors, system crashes and the stability of Internet connections.

• Jablonowski and Hawkins’ research identifies that real time, live data checks are made each time that an “e-Visa” is accessed.2 Their research also suggests that this design choice has been made in order to ensure that the most recent information is used, and that opportunities to identify people who have been ‘incorrectly’ issued a Visa or are no longer entitled to it are deprived of its benefits as quickly as possible. A ‘static’ and stored e-Visa would of course not allow this, for as long as the result was stored. The ongoing ‘hostile environment’ is likely to have informed this deeply problematic and extreme design decision, which in short makes accessing the e-Visa very difficult and prone to various kinds of error.

• The scheme also poses particular risks for people with poor digital literacy, language barriers, learning difficulties and those who may have been victims of abuse and other crimes. The Government has not published a DPIA or equality and human rights impact assessments to show how those risks could be mitigated. Not only may people from these groups face challenges setting up an UKVI account but they are also vulnerable to cybercrimes that could potentially expose their accounts and immigration status to hacking.

• People need a recent smartphone, i.e. an iPhone 7 or newer, or an Android with contactless payment facilities to set up an account. This is a barrier for many migrants. The Home Office’s suggestion that those applicants without a smartphone can “borrow a friend’s or family member’s phone” is naive and opens people up to exploitation, especially women, young people and people with disabilities.

Flawed rollout

• Even though the Home Office has had years to phase out the use of physical documents, we are now less than four months away from the deadline with many migrants unaware that they need to apply for a UKVI account.

• The Home Office has set all BRPs to expire by 31 December 2024, meaning that BRP holders face serious issues if they haven’t set up a UKVI account by the end of the year.

• There have been multiple issues with initial emails sent by the Home Office inviting people to create a UKVI account, including emails being sent to the wrong people.

• There has been no public awareness campaign to ensure that all those who are affected know they need to apply for an e-Visa.

• There is particular concern about the 200,000 people in the UK who have legacy documents proving their right to be here, and who are expected to first apply for a BRP and then apply for a UKVI account. As with the Windrush scandal, these tend to be older people who may not know they need to apply for an e-Visa until they try to access health or other public services.

Flawed implementation

Previous schemes, such at the EU Settlement Scheme, have demonstrated that digital-only schemes are susceptible to incorrect data, system crashes and Internet outages. Many of these errors relate to a lack of data integrity, such as mismatching individual’s records or failure to update records when new decisions are made. Errors and problems include:

• people seeing incorrect details on their accounts;

• people’s status being entangled or conflated with someone else’s;

• people being unable to access their status when they need to because the system has crashed;

• a lack of technical competency by those people tasked with checking someone’s immigration status via the new e-Visa scheme.

1Loss and liability: Glitching immigration status as a feature of the British border after Brexit, Jablonowski and Hawkins, Journal of Immigration, Asylum & Nationality Law, September 2024,

2Jablonowski & Hawkins (2024) p. 273-74

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