Home Office contractor collected UK citizens' private data

The Home Office has been accused of collecting data on "hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting British citizens" while conducting financial checks on migrants.

- Lizzie Dearden

A report by a private contractor for a routine immigration application was mistakenly sent to a charity by a government official, and contained information on more than 260 people including their names, dates of birth and electoral roll data.

Their only connection to the applicant appears to be that they previously lived or worked in the same address or postcode area, but some of the people listed had left as far back as 1986. The document, seen by the Observer, was generated by the credit reporting firm Equifax on 25 June 2024 and was emailed to a caseworker from the Refugee and Migrant Forum of Essex and London (Ramfel) later the same day.

It was drawn up for an immigration fee waiver application, which requires financial checks to verify that people cannot afford to pay the normal fee for their visa, immigration or nationality applications. More than 80,000 of these applications were lodged in the year to September.