UK Home Office dangles £1.3M prize for algorithm that guesses your age (www.theregister.com)

The UK Home Office has announced a £1.3 million contract tender seeking an AI algorithm capable of accurately predicting an individual’s age, primarily to aid immigration decisions for subjects without verifiable identity documents. This initiative follows serious criticism over previous safeguarding failures, where children seeking asylum were mistakenly classified as adults—exposing them to significant risks in adult detention facilities. The move aims to replace or augment existing, often unreliable, methods of age assessment with AI trained on millions of verified-age images to provide more consistent and defensible age estimates. This development is significant for the AI and ML community as it highlights a high-stakes government use case involving biometric age estimation, which poses unique technical and ethical challenges. The algorithm must integrate seamlessly with current Home Office systems and operate within defined accuracy margins, though the specific performance metrics remain undisclosed. Given the sensitivity around age determination—impacting vulnerable populations and influencing immigration, policing, and counter-terrorism—the project underscores the critical role of trustworthy, transparent AI in public sector applications. The contract timeline spans three years starting January 2026, signaling a long-term commitment to AI-driven age assessment. However, the Refugee Council and other watchdogs caution that technological fixes alone may not address deeper procedural flaws or the mental health impacts on individuals subjected to such assessments, calling for careful design and implementation to avoid replicating past harms. This tender marks a notable intersection of AI innovation with complex social and humanitarian issues, demanding both technical rigor and ethical foresight.