Advocacy groups are attacking the use of biometric facial age estimation as evidence in evaluations of child status among immigrants to the UK. There were 755 children incorrectly identified as adults by the UK without the benefit of facial age estimation in 2025, according to Home Office figures uncovered by the Helen Bamber Foundation. A Migration and Tech Monitor co-founder compared age estimation to phrenology, dubiously claiming that the pseudoscience which purported to measure mental characteristics through physical ones “similarly relied on categorising physical features to determine age.” A more pertinent point is raised by a spokesperson for the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium, who points out that appearance can change due to trauma, which could reduce the effectiveness of age estimation. Article Topicsage verification | biometric bias | Cognitec | face biometrics | facial age estimation (FAE) | Home Office Biometrics (HOB) | immigration | NIST