Error-prone eVisa system a precursor of digital ID
Technical errors with the Dwelling Workplace’s digital visa (eVisa) system are inflicting “excessive ranges of stress, worry and exhaustion” for migrants within the UK, who’re being left to navigate the digitisation of their immigration standing with minimal assist, analysis has discovered.
The report, Exclusion by design: Digital identification and the hostile setting for migrants, mentioned the error-prone eVisa system represents a precursor of what’s to come back with obligatory digital ID, arguing that efforts to digitise the immigration system signify a possibility to check such techniques on a precarious part of the inhabitants earlier than extending them out extra broadly.
On 31 December 2024, the bodily immigration paperwork of hundreds of thousands of individuals residing within the UK expired after being changed with a real-time, online-only immigration standing by the Dwelling Workplace.
With paper paperwork having been fully phased out, individuals at the moment are anticipated to make use of a UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) digital account to generate “share codes”, which they’re supposed to make use of to show their immigration standing when coping with a variety of third events, together with employers and letting businesses.
This implies the eVisa system – which trawls greater than 90 disparate authorities databases to generate and decide somebody’s immigration standing every time they log in – is the one means by which individuals can show their lawful residence within the UK, in addition to proof their related rights and entitlements.
‘Substantial limitations’
Nevertheless, the analysis – printed on 5 December 2025 by teachers Derya Ozkul from the College of Warwick and Marie Godin from the College of Leicester, in collaboration with Migrant Voice and the Open Rights Group – has discovered that the obligatory eVisa system is deeply impacting the day by day lives of migrants, together with their capability to work, hire or purchase, journey, research, and entry very important public providers.
“The transition to a completely digital immigration standing system marks a big shift in how migrants work together with the UK’s immigration infrastructure,” it mentioned, noting that whereas digitisation is being offered as a modernisation effort aimed toward enhancing effectivity and safety, the analysis demonstrates that its present implementation has created substantial limitations for a lot of migrants.
It additionally discovered that the “frequent technical issues” are being made worse by an absence of assist from the Dwelling Workplace, and that migrants’ sense of vulnerability is being heightened by the broader hostile setting through which this digitisation is going down.
“Worries of being unable to show authorized standing – inside a hostile setting that emphasises enforcement, detention and deportation – have been pervasive,” mentioned the report, including that analysis contributors shared “a deep worry of dropping their rights” in the event that they made errors.
“As a result of the system requires migrants to usually replace their info, even minor or inadvertent errors have been perceived as doubtlessly jeopardising their standing,” it mentioned. “This created a persistent sense of vulnerability. Furthermore, the burden of managing these dangers and the nervousness related to them falls fully on migrants.”
It added that this was creating “a deep sense of distrust” in direction of the Dwelling Workplace amongst migrants with detrimental experiences of the system, which have been significantly acute for these with restricted digital literacy, language limitations, disabilities or caring tasks.
The findings echo most of the sentiments beforehand shared with Pc Weekly by individuals experiencing technical errors with the eVisa system, who spoke in June 2025 in regards to the “anxiety-inducing” psychological toll of not having the ability to reliably show their immigration standing within the face of a hostile and unresponsive forms.
“Our report highlights the experiences of migrants throughout the UK – of various nationalities, authorized statuses and household conditions – who have been pressured to adapt to the brand new system with little time or assist,” mentioned Godin.
“Many described confusion and nervousness as they navigated a fancy, glitch-prone platform, fearing that even small errors may value them the fitting to work, hire or journey. The fixed stress to handle their digital standing and repair technical points left many exhausted, reinforcing migrants’ perceptions that the shift to digitalisation prioritised management over equity, effectivity and accessibility.”
Ozkul mentioned she hopes the report can function a warning about “what can go unsuitable when techniques are made obligatory and digital-only, with out providing any alternate options”.
Highlighting how the proposed introduction of digital ID within the UK has been framed round the necessity to curb unlawful immigration, the report mentioned the online-only eVisa has successfully positioned migrants “as a testing floor” for its broader nationwide digital ID ambitions.
“Whereas migrants have served as ‘technological testing grounds’ in different contexts (Molnar 2020), such experiments have sometimes targeted on managing exterior borders somewhat than governing populations inside state borders,” it mentioned.
“On this respect, the UK represents a particular and troubling case: it has piloted a digital id system on migrants residing inside its territory, successfully normalising experimental types of digital identification on a particular, already precarious group earlier than contemplating comparable digital infrastructures for most people.”
Coverage suggestions
The report goes on to make quite a lot of coverage suggestions that may assist alleviate the state of affairs for migrants. Within the brief time period, this contains offering non-digital alternate options for migrants, making certain there may be transparency over what knowledge is saved and which authorities businesses it might be shared with, and creating accessible repeal and redress mechanisms.
In the long term, it mentioned the Dwelling Workplace ought to set up significant two-way communication with civil society organisations supporting migrants; introduce clear authorized safeguards to forestall people or organisations, comparable to store employees or political activists, from demanding proof of digital immigration standing with out lawful authority; and cease the experimental use of know-how on migrants.
“The Dwelling Workplace can take speedy steps to cut back the nervousness that migrants are experiencing by giving them the protection of a bodily or digital backup that can enable them to show their standing in any circumstances,” mentioned Sara Alsherif, migrants digital justice programme supervisor at Open Rights Group, which collaborated with the authors on creating the report.
“Nevertheless, root and department reform of this method can be wanted and classes should be learnt, particularly as the federal government intends to roll digital ID out to everybody within the UK.”
The report itself added that implementing the suggestions would considerably scale back the dangers and inequities created by the present digital immigration system.
“By prioritising accessibility, transparency and accountability, the Dwelling Workplace can be certain that the digitalisation of public providers doesn’t compromise migrants’ rights,” it mentioned. “Failure to behave will perpetuate systemic exclusion, deepen inequalities and erode belief in public authorities.”
Pc Weekly contacted the Dwelling Workplace in regards to the contents of the report, however acquired no response.
