The immigration biometric database operated by the Home Office – called the Person Centric Data Platform – has suffered a mix-up of identity documents and data belonging to more than 76,000 people applying for residence, right to work status, social housing and healthcare.
Biometric Update first reported the data contamination affecting thousands of individual applications, which could result in multiple “merged identities”. In effect, the errors in the database could lead to the UK government rejecting immigrant applications in the absence of identity data or biometrics in files.
This month, amid the devastating situation in Gaza, one family hoping to join a man granted asylum in the UK were falsely dismissed by the Home Office, a court concluded, whilst having no way to submit fingerprint biometrics to validate their application. The court sided with the family, issuing an order that the Home Office must allow the family to apply for UK asylum without submitting biometrics.
The platform’s malfunction mixed up biographic and biometric data, meaning false data was attached to thousands of applications or assumed not there.
The data included identity documents, visa applications, and biometric information.
The issues undoubtedly caused significant delays and completely ended immigration processes to access UK services or gain UK status. Immigrants, registered with the correct data in the Home Office’ database, will have encountered long queues or questions about their seemingly ‘false’ identity at the border.
The system is part of the Home Office’s innovation plan, worth £400 million, to digitalise visa and immigration systems, however ‘merged identities’ have been detected in system failures by the Home Office before.
