Home Office used AI-hallucinated document to refuse asylum

A senior UK tribunal judge found that the Home Office’s refusal of a Moroccan woman’s asylum claim appears to rely on an AI-hallucinated source document.

The woman fled Morocco with her child after forced underage marriage and extreme violence including rape. She claimed asylum fearing her husband, a convicted criminal. The Home Office refused, citing a country policy information note (CPIN) supposedly confirming Morocco would be safe for her return. But the document does not exist — no CPIN on Morocco has been published since 2017. The Home Office’s own country policy team could not confirm its existence.

The judge said the refusal letter “bears hallmarks consistent with the use of artificial intelligence” and the phantom document “may transpire [to be] a result of an AI ‘hallucination’”. He called relying on a nonexistent document “analogous to relying on bogus evidence.”

When pressed, the Home Office produced a different internal document — a country information note (CIN) never disclosed to the court — which actually undercuts their own case. It notes 40,000 child marriages in Morocco in 2018, that marital rape is not explicitly criminalized, and that women reporting rape may be charged for sex outside marriage.

This is AI-generated content being used as grounds to deport someone, and nobody caught it until the second appeal.

Home Office used ‘AI hallucinated’ information to refuse asylum claim, judge suggests