The BaseNewsWIRED

UK Home Office May Face Investigation Over Use of OpenAI Tech

WIRED reports that the UK borders inspector is considering an inspection of the Home Office's use of GPT-4-based tools in asylum cases. Open Rights Group says summaries are less accurate than published figures; the Home Office says caseworkers make all decisions.

Open the source ↗

Why it matters

The same thing, for different readers.

What it means for you

Asylum seekers in the UK are not told when AI tools summarise their interviews, so they may be unable to challenge a summary that gets their story wrong.

For lawmakers

The Home Office tools are missing from the UK's public register of algorithmic tools, although the government's AI Playbook says departments must list them.

For researchers

Open Rights Group says unusable summaries exceed the pilot's 9 percent error rate and one tool has no quality control; the article does not show its data.

The question it raises

Using a language model to summarise accounts of persecution raises the question of whether decisions on someone's safety can fairly rest on a machine's reading of their story.

In their own words

Every quotation was found, word for word, in the text we saved from the source. That shows the words are there; it does not make them true, or prove the speaker meant them as quoted.

From the source’s own text.

“Asylum decisions are made by trained caseworkers, with AI tools used only to assist in navigating interview records and policy information. They cannot be used in isolation and do not make decisions on claims”
Home Office spokespersonA Home Office spokesperson's emailed statement to WIRED on how the asylum tools are used.
Found word for word in the sourceAs quoted in the text we read, not the speaker’s own text or a transcript of their words
“We’re dealing with people’s lives. We’re talking about people that have faced some of the worst circumstances, and we’re meant to be making decisions based on facts and on understanding harm”
Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Labour MPLabour MP Ribeiro-Addy explaining to WIRED the objection to AI tools in asylum decisions.
Found word for word in the sourceAs quoted in the text we read, not the speaker’s own text or a transcript of their words
“Migrant organizations, legal practitioners, not many of them know about the actual use of this tool”
Sara Alsherif, programme manager, Open Rights GroupOpen Rights Group's Alsherif on why asylum seekers cannot challenge summaries when they are not told of the tools.
Found word for word in the sourceAs quoted in the text we read, not the speaker’s own text or a transcript of their words
“you can’t even begin to ask questions about things if you don’t know that they’re being used”
Caroline Selman, senior research fellow, Public Law ProjectPublic Law Project's Selman on 11 high-risk government AI systems the Public Law Project found that are missing from the public repository.
Found word for word in the sourceAs quoted in the text we read, not the speaker’s own text or a transcript of their wordsstarts inside a longer claim, right after “and”

The record

Questions
How is AI changing childhood, health and daily life? · Who can demand evidence, delay a release or stop an unsafe deployment?
People
Isabella Ward (Wrote it) · Sara Alsherif (Speaks, leads the migrant digital justice program, Open Rights Group) · Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Speaks, Labour backbench MP) · Caroline Selman (Speaks, senior research fellow, Public Law Project) · Home Office spokesperson (Speaks)
What we read
We read the whole source.
Found by
The Radar, run of October 28, 2026, via wired-ai (tier 2: a major outlet’s own reporting)
Cite this
WIRED, “UK Home Office May Face Investigation Over Use of OpenAI Tech”, October 27, 2026. Entry in the Ctrl AI Base, https://ctrlai.com/base/wired-2026-10-27-home-office-openai-asylum
Our notesThe investigation is only under consideration; the inspector did not confirm it. Error-rate claims come from Open Rights Group and are not independently checked in the article.