New rules introduced by the Home Office will grant immigration enforcement officials the authority to conduct searches of children arriving in the UK via small boats, specifically to check for concealed phone sim cards in their mouths. These measures are part of broader powers that allow officers at UK ports to seize mobile phones if there is a belief they contain valuable intelligence pertaining to people-smugglers. Officials will be empowered to instruct new arrivals to remove outer coats, jackets, or gloves to search for electronic devices, and critically, to conduct intrusive searches inside a person’s mouth for hidden sim cards or small electronic items. Home Office sources have confirmed that, if deemed absolutely necessary and proportionate, these highly invasive searches could also be applied to children.

The Home Office asserts that these mobile phone searches are crucial for collecting intelligence on asylum seekers’ journeys and for facilitating the arrest of people-smugglers. Immigration, police, and National Crime Agency (NCA) officers will be able to search migrants for phones at the border without the need for an arrest. Additionally, the NCA and police investigators will gain the ability to utilize new interim serious crime prevention orders, enabling immediate action to ban suspects under investigation from using mobile phones, laptops, and accessing social media. These new provisions are integrated into the border security, asylum and immigration bill, which is anticipated to receive royal assent shortly.

However, these new rules have drawn significant criticism and concern from charities and refugees alike. Organisations such as the Humans for Rights Network and Freedom from Torture have highlighted the potential for these searches to be undignified, traumatizing, and an affront to privacy. Maddie Harris of the Humans for Rights Network emphasized that people, especially children, who have endured horrific and violent journeys, should be treated with dignity and respect, rather than as criminals subjected to invasive searches. Sile Reynolds, head of asylum advocacy at Freedom from Torture, condemned the powers as a “dystopian act of brutality,” expressing worry that they risk treating all refugees as security threats and demonstrate a blatant disregard for the universal human right to privacy.

Refugees themselves have voiced skepticism regarding the efficacy of these measures. A Syrian refugee recounted that smugglers typically instruct individuals to delete all data from their phones before crossing the Channel, with many either discarding cheap phones or arranging for more valuable devices to be sent later via mail. The refugee expressed disbelief that asylum seekers would hide sim cards in their mouths and viewed the new rules as a performative act. This skepticism is compounded by a High Court ruling in 2022, which found the Home Office’s previous blanket and unpublished policy of confiscating mobile phones from small boat arrivals to be unlawful. At that time, the stated purpose was also to obtain intelligence on smugglers.

Despite the criticism, the Minister for Border Security and Asylum, Alex Norris, reiterated the Home Office’s stance, stating that organized criminal networks heavily rely on phone contacts and social media for recruiting migrants for Channel crossings. He asserted that these new powers would enable law enforcement to seize phones from “illegal migrants” prior to arrest, thereby facilitating intelligence gathering to dismantle “vile smuggling gangs” and prevent further dangerous journeys.