The Home Office will begin using AI to estimate the ages of asylum seekers who claim to be children from next year.

Ministers have awarded a contract to Harlow-based IT company Akhter Computers to provide “an algorithm that can accurately predict the age of a subject.”

The technology was previously expected to be rolled out this year.

Ministers have promised the technology will undergo “rigorous” testing before it is used.

Border security minister, Alex Norris, said the technology will ensure “those who game the system are identified, detained and removed without delay, and those who deserve support and protection are given it.”

The Home Office announced last summer it would begin using facial age estimation to try and stop adult asylum seekers pretending to be children.

It followed a report by the government’s independent immigration inspector which said without a “foolproof test” it was “inevitable that some age assessments will be wrong.”

The previous Conservative government introduced plans to estimate age using the bones and teeth of asylum seekers.

Unaccompanied asylum seeker children are treated differently to adult, and are more likely to be granted asylum, leading to some adults posing as children.

The local council – in most cases Kent – also has a legal duty to look after unaccompanied children, whereas adult asylum seekers are housed by the Home Office.

In the year to March 2026, 43 per cent of those claiming to be children were found to be adults using existing age assessments. Those decisions can be challenged, however, and some asylum seekers assessed as adults have later been reassessed as children. –Skynews

Hundreds arrested, dozens of police injured after Champions League riots

A total of 219 people have been injured in clashes between football fans and police across France after Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) won the Champions League final against Arsenal.

Eight were in a serious condition, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said. Thousands of officers were deployed to curb unrest that disrupted bus, train and rail services in the capital, Paris. Fifty-seven of them were injured.

Nuñez said 780 people had been arrested over the violence – with more than 450 in custody. A person was found dead after an accident on Paris’s ring road, which rioters tried to block overnight.

Some 6,000 police was mobilised for yesterday’s victory parade at the site of the Eiffel Tower.

The interior minister said the security forces would be “firm” in their response.

“We are a great country for maintaining public order. We allow freedom of assembly, but not excesses,” he said.

There was similar violence when PSG won the same trophy last year, with celebrations turning deadly.

The vast Champs-Élysées was swarmed by fans shortly after the local team won in a penalty shootout.

Footage shows flares being set off, electric bikes burning on roads and revelers smashing the glass of at least one shopfront. Police fired tear gas to disperse crowds in the city centre.

Paris police made 480 arrests, with 277 taken into custody, including 82 minors.

The figures were provisional, the Paris prosecutor’s office said. It added that offences ranged from attacks on officers to attacks on property, theft, as well as illegal possession of weapons.

The circumstances surrounding the death of the 24-year-old near Porte Maillot in the Paris ring road remain unclear. Some witnesses said he was riding a motorcycle when he crashed into concrete blocks.

A teenager was also in critical condition following a brawl in another area of Paris. It is not clear if they were involved in the football-related rioting.-BBC

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