Privacy International
In June '22, a pilot scheme was introduced to fit GPS ankle devices on people seeking asylum. This pilot was extended in June '23, despite the UK Home Office admitting that the data collected from the pilot didn’t show that GPS tracking was effective at preventing absconding.
They’re now considering applying GPS tracking to all people arriving via ‘unauthorised means’ to prevent absconding, all before the unproven pilot has concluded.
Privacy International
Furthermore, these tags can have serious consequences.
A hostile government can see whatever it wants to see in the data, and use it as evidence to deny people’s human rights claims, deport them, or arrest them.
We bought some similar tags from the open market and tested them, to see how they work, including the pitfalls of GPS data.
Privacy International
Secondly, this practice has been described as “psychological torture” by those who are subject to it, and evidenced to cause physical and mental harm.
See Bail for Immigration Detainees' report: https://www.biduk.org/articles/research-reveals-inhumane-effects-of-gps-tagging-on-migrants
Privacy International
Firstly, a FOIA response found that of people granted bail between Feb 2020 and March 2021 - more than 7,000 people - just 43 people absconded. Less than 0.56%.
https://privacyinternational.org/news-analysis/4907/shining-light-hostile-environment
０７６萌ＳＮＳ is a social network, courtesy of ０７６. It runs on GNU social, version 2.0.2-beta0, available under the GNU Affero General Public License.
All ０７６萌ＳＮＳ content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.