A Home Office pilot scheme involving asylum seekers forced to wear ankle tags to track their locations “did not affect compliance” among them, a government report has concluded.
The trial, launched on 15 June 2022 and concluding on 15 December 2023, involved around 1,200 asylum seekers split into two groups.
Some 600 people were fitted with GPS monitors and told to continue regularly reporting to an immigration reporting centre, which was mostly fortnightly appointments.
The other group – also 600 asylum seekers – were not fitted with electronic tags and had their face-to-face meetings as normal.
Both groups were chosen to be largely young, male and Albanian – the most common profile of asylum seekers during this period.
The findings from the scheme, which have been released for the first time, showed just 16% of the asylum seekers forced to wear electronic monitoring tags absconded and were either unable to be located by the Home Office, had their asylum claim rejected or left the country.
This compared with 14% of the asylum seekers who were not fitted with tags and was deemed a “statistically insignificant” difference by government analysts.
Two-thirds of those tagged either did not keep it charged, a battery breach, or tried to remove it, a strap tamper.
One person had 81 battery breaches – the average per person was six.
The greatest number of strap tampers committed by one person was three but on average was one.
Battery breaches were stated to be mostly accidental – asylum seekers complained the battery was not lasting for as long as advised, and the supplied cable was no long enough for them to sit comfortably while charging the device.
In total, 316 asylum seekers had their tag “ceased” during the pilot – either due to legal or medical challenges or removing their tag and absconding.
One asylum seeker faked a hospital letter saying that the tag was too tight and could no longer be worn.
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The findings also concluded that asylum seekers hopeful that their claims would be successful were more compliant with Home Office officials, and people receiving asylum support were 79% less likely to stop contact with immigration officials.
In March 2024, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) found the scheme broke data protection laws.
John Edwards, the UK information commissioner said it “was not legally compliant”, calling the GPS tags “highly intrusive” and highlighting that asylum seekers “might not even be aware that they have [privacy and data protection] rights”.
The ICO’s formal warning said any further attempts to monitor asylum seekers would be met with enforcement action.
The Home Office would not confirm how much the scheme cost, or if there were plans to re-run another trial.
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