UK sham marriage tool found to disproportionately flag Greeks, Albanians, Bulgarians and Romanians
Occurred: April 2021
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A UK Home Office AI-powered tool intended to identify potential sham marriages may discriminate against people from Albania, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria, according to reports.
An internal Home Office evaluation (pdf) obtained through a freedom of information revealed issues with the 'triage' process, including the possibility of 'indirect discrimination' against people of specific nationalities due to potentially biased information that also includes the age gap between partners.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) reported that an equality impact assessment (EIA) conducted by the Home Office used historical information from marriage referrals received by the Home Office over an unspecified three-year period and that any biases that might exist within this source data are likely to be projected forward by the sham marriage algorithm.
A graph included in the EIA showed the number of marriages that go through the system involving specific nationalities and the percentage of those marriages that are given a red light.ย
According to the graph, the nationalities with the highest rate of triage failure โ between 20 percent and 25 percent โ are Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Albania. Those most frequently referred to the triage system include Albania, India, Pakistan and Romania.
Civil rights groups and lawyers argued that the Home Office should allow transparency, independent oversight, and ongoing monitoring and evaluation of its use of algorithms to ensure that its systems are fair and lawful.
โ February 2023. A legal challenge accused the UK Home Office of discriminating against people from certain countries.
System ๐ค
Documents ๐
Home Office. Borders Immigration Citizenship Systems Equality Impact Assessment (pdf)
Operator: UK Home Office
Developer: ย Home Office DACC
Country: UK
Sector: Govt - immigration
Purpose: Detect sham marriages
Technology: Machine learning
Issue: Accountability; Bias/discrimination - nationality; Transparency
Legal, regulatory ๐ฉ๐ผโโ๏ธ
Public Law Project (2021). Written evidence to UK Parliament Justice and Home Affairs Committee
Research, advocacy ๐งฎ
Public Law Project (2021). 'Sham Marriages' and Algorithmic Decision-making in the Home Office
Freemovement (2021). Home Office Refuses to Explain Secret Sham Marriage Algorithm
Freedom of information requests ๐ฆ
News, commentary, analysis ๐๏ธ
https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2021-04-19/home-office-algorithm-sham-marriages/
Page info
Type: Incident
Published: August 2024