The UK will scan asylum-seekers’ faces for age checks—despite knowing the tech is flawed
The UK will scan asylum-seekers’ faces for age checks—despite knowing the tech is flawed
英国政府计划对寻求庇护者进行面部年龄扫描——尽管已知该技术存在缺陷
Age verification is consuming the Internet. From social media bans in Australia to porn restrictions in half of US states, for many having to prove their age to access websites is becoming an everyday requirement. But one of the key technologies underpinning many of these age checks is about to seep into the offline world—with potentially life-changing consequences for people having their age predicted by AI. 年龄验证正在席卷互联网。从澳大利亚的社交媒体禁令到美国半数州对色情网站的限制，对许多人来说，证明年龄以访问网站正成为日常要求。然而，支撑这些年龄检查的关键技术之一即将渗透到线下世界——对于那些年龄被人工智能预测的人来说，这可能会带来改变命运的后果。
Starting next year, the British government is planning to introduce facial age estimation—where AI scans your face and suggests how old you are—to help determine the age of asylum seekers arriving at the United Kingdom’s border. The move is believed to be the first time that a so-called facial age estimation (FAE) system has been used in this way. 从明年开始，英国政府计划引入面部年龄估算技术（即通过人工智能扫描面部并推测年龄），以帮助确定抵达英国边境的寻求庇护者的年龄。据信，这是所谓的面部年龄估算（FAE）系统首次以这种方式被使用。
Many asylum seekers arriving in the UK will not have documents proving their age, and if children are incorrectly classed as adults, they can be stripped of some legal protections and placed in adult-only detention centers. An investigation by WIRED and Lighthouse Reports, in collaboration with The Independent, has obtained an internal UK government report detailing its tests of FAE technologies. It shows how the systems regularly mistake children for adults and appear to contain serious bias problems, which directly impact the largest group of migrants subject to age assessments in 2025, according to data from the Home Office. 许多抵达英国的寻求庇护者没有证明其年龄的文件。如果儿童被错误地归类为成年人，他们可能会被剥夺部分法律保护，并被安置在仅限成年人的拘留中心。WIRED 和 Lighthouse Reports 在与《独立报》合作的一项调查中，获得了一份详细记录英国政府 FAE 技术测试情况的内部报告。报告显示，这些系统经常将儿童误判为成年人，且似乎存在严重的偏见问题。根据英国内政部的数据，这直接影响了 2025 年接受年龄评估的最大移民群体。
The investigation raises questions about the effectiveness of the technology and whether it should be deployed in such high-stakes scenarios. The findings also come as the second Trump administration and governments around the world increasingly adopt anti-migrant policies while spending billions on surveillance technology that is often deployed against vulnerable people who have little knowledge of its use, how it works, or ways they can challenge it. 这项调查对该技术的有效性以及是否应在如此高风险的场景中部署提出了质疑。调查结果发布之际，正值特朗普第二任期政府及全球各国政府日益采取反移民政策，同时斥资数十亿美元购买监控技术。这些技术往往被用于针对弱势群体，而这些人对技术的使用、运作方式或质疑途径知之甚少。
The leaked Home Office document obtained by Lighthouse Reports largely details the “best” performing of seven facial age estimation algorithms that the department tested last year, although it does not directly name the companies behind them. The report found that the system performed significantly worse when it was used to estimate the ages of Sub-Saharan Africans compared to other groups. Lighthouse Reports 获得的这份泄露的内政部文件，主要详细介绍了该部门去年测试的七种面部年龄估算算法中表现“最好”的一种，尽管文件中并未直接点名这些算法背后的公司。报告发现，该系统在估算撒哈拉以南非洲人的年龄时，表现明显差于其他群体。
Sub-Saharan Africans are the largest group of migrants entering the UK after crossing the English Channel in small boats in recent years, and had more age assessments raised in 2025 than cohorts from other regions, according to Home Office data. For female Sub-Saharan Africans, the age that the system guessed was off by an average of 4.6 years, meaning that a 13.5-year-old girl could be assessed as an 18-year-old adult. 根据内政部数据，近年来，撒哈拉以南非洲人是乘坐小船横渡英吉利海峡进入英国的最大移民群体，且在 2025 年接受的年龄评估次数多于其他地区的群体。对于撒哈拉以南非洲女性，系统估算的年龄平均偏差为 4.6 岁，这意味着一名 13.5 岁的女孩可能会被评估为 18 岁的成年人。
The investigation also found that the Home Office, which oversees UK immigration and policing, disbanded a scientific committee designed to advise it on broader age estimation methods while it was exploring the introduction of AI. “We were keen to highlight the inadequacies of facial age estimation, but this opportunity was not presented to us, and then the committee was shut down,” says Tim Cole, an emeritus professor of medical statistics at University College London’s Institute of Child Health and former committee member. Cole describes the face scans as “hideously inaccurate.” 调查还发现，负责英国移民和警务工作的内政部在探索引入人工智能的同时，解散了一个旨在就更广泛的年龄估算方法提供建议的科学委员会。伦敦大学学院儿童健康研究所医学统计学名誉教授、前委员会成员蒂姆·科尔（Tim Cole）表示：“我们非常希望能强调面部年龄估算的不足之处，但我们没有获得这个机会，随后委员会就被解散了。”科尔形容这些面部扫描“极其不准确”。
In addition to the internal report and the scientific committee members’ concerns, years of test results from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology have shown that FAE systems’ accuracy often depends on the race of the person being analyzed and the quality of the photos taken of them. 除了内部报告和科学委员会成员的担忧外，美国国家标准与技术研究院（NIST）多年的测试结果也表明，FAE 系统的准确性往往取决于被分析者的种族以及所拍摄照片的质量。
“We have rigorous processes in place to verify an individual’s age and are working to modernize these through the testing of fast and effective facial age estimation technology,” a Home Office spokesperson says in response to the findings. The spokesperson adds that the committee was disbanded due to requiring “different fields of expertise.” While the Home Office says face scanning is designed to be an “additional” tool for border officers and won’t “replace or overrule human judgment,” it did not answer questions about how it plans to use the technology in real-world environments. “In cases of uncertainty,” the spokesperson says, “individuals will always be treated as children until a further assessment is conducted.” 内政部发言人在回应调查结果时表示：“我们有严格的流程来核实个人年龄，并正致力于通过测试快速有效的面部年龄估算技术来使这些流程现代化。”发言人补充说，委员会解散是因为需要“不同领域的专业知识”。虽然内政部称面部扫描旨在作为边境官员的“辅助”工具，不会“取代或推翻人类的判断”，但并未回答关于计划如何在现实环境中应用该技术的问题。发言人称：“在不确定的情况下，在进行进一步评估之前，个人将始终被视为儿童。”
Expanding estimates: The UK government first announced its plans to use face age estimation alongside border staff judgments to assess migrants in July 2025. Since then, the Home Office has delayed the rollout of the systems until 2027, saying it will use the “cutting-edge AI tech” to “crack down on fake claims” with the aim of stopping “adults attempting to game the system.” 扩大估算范围：英国政府于 2025 年 7 月首次宣布计划在边境工作人员判断的基础上，使用面部年龄估算来评估移民。此后，内政部将系统的推出时间推迟至 2027 年，称将利用这种“尖端人工智能技术”来“打击虚假申请”，旨在阻止“成年人试图钻系统空子”。
Over the past five years, AI face scans have emerged as a key component of controversial online age verification programs, as lawmakers have mandated social media platforms, porn websites, and some retailers check their users’ ages. It has also been trialed at some bars and shops in the UK. 在过去五年中，人工智能面部扫描已成为备受争议的在线年龄验证计划的关键组成部分，因为立法者已强制要求社交媒体平台、色情网站和一些零售商检查其用户的年龄。该技术也已在英国的一些酒吧和商店进行了试验。
Face age estimation works by analyzing the features of someone’s face—with the underlying systems trained on millions of age-labeled faces—to produce an estimated age. In controlled laboratory tests, the best algorithms can predict a person’s age to within around 2.5 years. However, the results can vary wildly depending on the algorithm, a person’s gender, demographic details, and other factors. Poor-quality images, such as those with bad lighting, can drastically reduce the performance of the systems. (A case in point: People have tricked some systems using images of characters from video games.) The Home Office appears to have been aware of potential problems with the technology and still pushed ahead with its program. The leaked Home Office report produced in April 2025, which was completed before the government purchased face-scanning technology, details the testing of seven FAE. 面部年龄估算的工作原理是分析人脸特征——底层系统通过数百万张带有年龄标签的人脸进行训练——从而得出估算年龄。在受控的实验室测试中，最好的算法可以将人的年龄预测误差控制在 2.5 岁左右。然而，结果会因算法、性别、人口统计细节和其他因素而产生巨大差异。低质量的图像（例如光线不佳的图像）会大幅降低系统的性能。（一个典型的例子是：人们曾利用电子游戏角色的图像欺骗过一些系统。）内政部似乎已经意识到该技术存在的潜在问题，但仍坚持推进其计划。这份于 2025 年 4 月制作的泄露内政部报告（在政府购买面部扫描技术之前完成）详细记录了对七种 FAE 技术的测试情况。