e-Visas: Hostile and Broken

Issues with the new e-Visa scheme

Insistence on digital-only creates a number of threats to, and potential violations of, human rights by not providing alternative means to prove a person’s immigration status, especially for vulnerable groups.

Problematic design choices

The e-Visa scheme is online only, rather than just digital, meaning that a digital visa cannot be stored on a device in advance of a meeting or application for a service, unlike a paper visa. Research shows that the e-Visa system in fact makes complicated live checks across databases, leading to potential additional and new errors each time a check is made. The potential for errors is exacerbated by the fact that datasets are not tightly linked by single identifiers, meaning that data can be mismatched and incorrect results returned during a live e-Visa check.¹ The policy is due to the Home Office’s desire to rescind e-Visas whenever possible and as soon as possible, without sufficient regard for the consequences for holders of e-Visas.²

Poor planning

The Home Office, in setting its own deadline, has had many years to prepare for the phasing out of physical immigration documents. Despite this reasonable time-frame for implementation, we now find ourselves months away from the cliff-edge deadline of 31 December 2024 with many migrants in the UK still unaware of the changes.

There seems to be little support in place for those with specific vulnerabilities, such as people experiencing homelessness, older people, those living in care, and those with complex mental health needs. There is also no evidence that sufficient legal advice has been made available to those who need it. It remains to be seen if the Home Office will consider how these needs will be met through the transition.

Poor implementation

Those people who have been made aware of the need to transition to the e-Visa scheme are met with countless technical issues, the result of poor planning and implementation, as observed by case studies gathered by grassroots organisation, the3million. Many of these errors may relate to a lack of data integrity, such as failure to update records when new decisions are made; to the real-time matching of data noted above; the complexity of the systems used as data sources being matched, and to the underlying architecture of the system, focused on “decisions” rather than user records.¹ Errors and problems include, but are not limited to:

• people seeing incorrect details on their accounts

• invitations being incorrectly sent to British citizens, a group who do not require e-Visas

• people being unable to access their status when they need to because the system has crashed, or their status has been entangled or conflated with someone else’s

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

• airlines and international carriers not yet willing to adopt the e-Visa scheme

Home Office’s Exclusion of Liability

In reference to the above technical issues, the Home Office states in its terms and conditions for the e-Visa that they take no liability for any problems, disruptions or direct or indirect losses when using a UKVI account.3 This implies that the Home Office is already aware of the many technical issues with the e-Visa scheme and is pre-emptively protecting itself against legitimate legal claims.

Human rights and data protection concerns

For such a large-scale undertaking, we would expect both human rights and equality impact assessments to be carried out, as well as a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA), which should cover similar concerns regarding the consequences of any errors in data processing. We would assume a DPIA does exist, but it is not clear that either of the others has been conducted, despite the following risks:

• Its users will include people with poor digital literacy skills, who may struggle to access or use the digital system.

• The target group for this technology is particularly vulnerable to cybercrimes, in that language barriers and lower digital literacy mean they are less likely to be able to recognise phishing attempts, trojans and malware, potentially exposing their accounts, and therefore their immigration status, to hacking.

• Requiring both a stable internet connection and a recent smartphone (the e-Visa sign-up calls for an iPhone 7 or newer, or an Android with contactless payment technology) creates a high barrier to access 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.

• There is a lack of additional support for the most vulnerable, including people with disabilities, learning difficulties, language barriers, older people, children, young people in care and people who have been victims of abuse and other crimes.

It is vital that all three assessments are both made and published. It is also important that the results from the ICO’s investigation into the Atlas database noted in March are communicated to the public as soon as possible, and well before e-Visas become compulsory on 1 January 2025.

No contingency plan or mitigations

There is no published backup plan in place, no transitional period after the deadline, nor any safety net for people who are unable to comply by the cut-off date at the end of this year. Given the Home Office’s poor communication, it is fair to assume that thousands of people will not apply for the required UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) account in time. It may only be at the point when those people urgently need to prove their permission to be in the UK that they discover their inability to do so. This could well result in them losing a home they wish to rent, being passed over for a job opportunity, missing out on education or being unable to travel back to the UK.

The only mitigations in place are an interactive chatbot on the e-Visa page and an outsourced, English language-only helpline, which is only available during working hours in the UK (9am-5pm). If experience of the EU Settlement Scheme is anything to go by, this phone line is very likely to be insufficient.

The technical errors from poor planning and the outstanding human rights impacts all point to a lack of consideration of serious mitigations to deal with such issues. While there is a history of poor data management at the Home Office, there must also be a suspicion that the Home Office has deliberately failed to mitigate risks, for reasons of policy, particularly regarding creating a ‘hostile environment’. Whatever the reasons, the scheme is not fit for purpose as a result of these failures to fully understand and mitigate risks to individuals.

No learning from previous mistakes

The government appears not to have taken any lessons from previous failings in its immigration policies and schemes. Despite the 2018 Windrush scandal, and the myriad issues with the even more recent EU Settlement Scheme, neither the government nor the Home Office have implemented the key learnings or recommendations from past mistakes. Despite warnings of problems with data management from the ICO and the Independent Chief Inspector for Borders and Immigration, these problems persist.

Recommendations

Short term recommendations

• Stop the e-Visa scheme immediately, and provide emergency alternatives or extend the use of expired BRPs and BRCs.

• Provide an alternative to the digital-only, online-only status and allow people to use physical documents and digital systems that can be viewed offline to prove their right to be in the UK.

• Start meaningful engagement with stakeholders and the migrant community through tailored, personalised communication and learning lessons from the EU settlement scheme and Windrush scandal.

• Ensure that human rights and equality impact assessments are carried out, alongside a Data Protection Impact Assessment, and publish all three.

• The ICO should communicate the findings from its March investigation into the Atlas database and associated visa and border issues as soon as possible, given the likely need for urgent remedial action.

• The Home Office should explain to Parliament and the ICO what remedial work is needed to ensure the Home Office’s border systems, Atlas database and Visa services are fit for purpose. These will need to cover areas including software integrations, data integrity , reliance on probabalistic data matching of user records, error rates and user support.

Long-term recommendations

• Ensure that any digital system works offline to ensure that people can prove their rights in all circumstances.

• Consider the proposal from the3million4 where digital status can be proved through digital tokens akin to the QR codes used for COVID-19 certification. These tokens could be accessed without an Internet connection or even printed out onto cards. The use of such a secure QR-based alternative is in line with the recommendations of the International Civil Aviation Organisation

• Ensure that any new scheme has sufficient technical support for users from the Home Office, including a helpline that can be reached in the UK and abroad for free, 24/7, with translation services for migrants, carriers, employers, landlords and others in order to a) obtain a certified, on-the-spot confirmation of a person’s UK immigration status when the usual mechanisms fail; b) receive one-off assistance with the transition to an e-Visa; and c) access support for users with ongoing problems when trying to prove their status.

1 Jablonowski, Kuba and Hawkins, Monique (2024) “Loss and liability: Glitching immigration status as a feature of the British border after Brexit”. Journal of Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Law, 36 (4). 254-274. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

2Jablonowski & Hawkins (2024), p. 261

3 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ukvi-account-terms-and-conditions/ukvi-account-terms-and-conditions

4 https://the3million.org.uk/our-proposal-fixing-digital-status

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