The High Court has dismissed the judicial review case against the Home Office’s electronic visa (eVisa) system, after concluding that the secretary of state has acted lawfully in refusing to provide alternative proof of immigration status.
On 31 December 2024, the immigration documents of millions of people living in the UK expired after being replaced by the Home Office with a real-time, online-only immigration status.
Despite persistent data quality and integrity issues plaguing the system since its inception, current Home Office policy means the eVisa system is the only way people can prove their lawful residence in the UK, as well as evidence their associated rights and entitlements.
However, in October 2025, two unnamed individuals affected by the system – a recognised refugee and survivor of trafficking, and a vulnerable adult – were previously granted permission to proceed with a judicial review against the Home Office, with the Cardiff Administrative Court noting it is in the public interest for the legality of the Home Office’s policy to be determined.
This followed the individuals experiencing sustained issues with their eVisas, lasting for six and nine months respectively, during which time both were unable to claim the benefits they were entitled to, while their accounts either displayed inaccurate information or locked them out altogether.
Despite the distress caused by these situations, in which the individuals were clearly not at fault, the Home Office refused to provide them with any alternative means of proving their legal status during this time.
Beginning on 3 March 2026, lawyers from Deighton Pierce Glynn (DPG) argued across a two-day hearing in the High Court that the Home Office’s digital, online-only approach to visas is an “unlawful fettering of discretion” and the overall policy of not providing alternative proof of status is “irrational”.
The High Court, however, has ultimately rejected these arguments, ruling that the home secretary’s blanket policy of only issuing digital visas is in line with UK immigration regulations, and that “she was choosing to exercise that power in a particular way which was permitted”.
High Court ruling
The court said while there can legitimately be different views as to whether there should be an additional backup arrangement operating alongside the eVisa system, “it is highly significant” that the Home Office recognises the issues with the eVisa system and is actively working to ameliorate them through a 12-month stabilisation plan.
However, it added the effectiveness of amelioration efforts come with a range of “practical and political assessments in respect of which the court should exercise caution before concluding that the approach being taken is irrational”.
Elsewhere in the ruling, the judge acknowledged: “I am also conscious that consideration of where the balance lies between the general benefit from a wholly digital system and the resulting hardship to individuals is primarily a matter of political judgement.”
Ultimately, the High Court ruled that the policy is not irrational, as “it cannot be said that the defendant’s decision against implementing…[a backup arrangement] is outside the range of decisions rationally open to her. It follows that this ground also fails”.
Importantly, while the case ultimately turned on a narrow legal question over whether the move to a digital, online-only visa system is an unlawful use of the home secretary’s discretionary powers, both the Home Office and the judge accepted that glitches with the eVisa system can and do cause serious difficulties for users.
“[The home secretary] accepted that the current system was not perfect and that in individual cases it could cause hardship to those who were not able to access an accurate eVisa through no fault of their own,” it said. “However, she contended that the extent and frequency of the problems in the eVisa system had been overstated by the claimants.”
It should be noted that even if people’s eVisa issues are resolved once, Computer Weekly has heard concerns that, because of how the system is set up to trawl dozens of disparate government databases in real time, the same people could once again find themselves without access to a working eVisa every time a status is needed.
Given that millions of people are now required to prove their immigration status via the system, even a 1% error rate would mean tens of thousands of people are affected at the very least.
The ruling also highlighted that eVisa issues can be fixed if enough pressure is brought to bear on the Home Office.
“It was apparent in some instances the problems which individuals encountered with the eVisa system were not remedied until legal proceedings were threatened or actually underway,” it said.
“It is also apparent that in such cases the defendant was able to resolve the problems relatively quickly. This evidence cuts both ways. It shows that there are problems with the eVisa system some of which are not resolved by the various procedures which the defendant has put in place. However, it also shows that those problems are capable of being resolved once proper attention is focused on them.”
The judge also confirmed that individuals affected by eVisa problems can continue to bring judicial review challenges to require the Home Office to fix issues with their eVisa account, especially where the situation is urgent. Computer Weekly understands that lawyers are currently considering whether to appeal the decision.
Reactions
Monique Hawkins is head of policy and advocacy at the3million, a migrant support organisation that has been helping those affected by the eVisa system from the start, and provided evidence for the case. She said that while “we are disappointed by the ruling”, it was positive the judge recognised that the two claimants were not alone in being affected by problems with the system.
“We are pleased that data from our Report-It tool was useful to the court in showing that eVisa problems, when they arise, cause real hardship for those impacted by such problems,” she told Computer Weekly.
“It is completely unacceptable to have rights in theory while being unable to prove those rights in practice – this is exactly what caused the Windrush scandal, and lessons must be learned. We encourage anyone who experiences such problems to continue reporting to us, and we will continue to advocate for a system that leaves no one behind.”
Fizza Quereshi, CEO of the Migrants’ Rights Network, added: “The eVisa system has been built to exclude […] moving proof of status entirely online while shifting deadlines and leaving [Biometric Resident Permits] BRPs with outdated expiry dates has created confusion, stress and loss of immigration status. People have lost jobs, homes and the ability to re‑enter the UK.”
She further added while there have been clear problems with the system since it was introduced during the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) after Brexit, warnings have not been heeded.
“For marginalised migrant groups, the risks are sharper: digital border tech expands state surveillance and deepens harms already faced by people in precarious or undocumented situations,” she said. “It is disappointing that this crucial legal challenge has been dismissed given the profound impact this technology is having on migrant lives. When technology becomes enforcement rather than empowerment, it becomes a source of harm.”
‘A hostile and unresponsive bureaucracy’
In June 2025, people experiencing technical errors with the Home Office’s eVisa system told Computer Weekly about the psychological toll of not being able to reliably prove their immigration status in the face of a hostile and unresponsive bureaucracy.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, those affected variously told Computer Weekly that the entire experience had been “anxiety-inducing” and described how their lives had been thrust into “uncertainty” by the transition.
Each also described how the “inordinate amount of stress” associated with not being able to reliably prove their immigration status had been made worse by a lack of responsiveness and help from the Home Office, which they accused of essentially leaving them in the lurch.
In one case that was reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the technical errors with data held by the Home Office were so severe that the ICO found there had been a breach of UK data protection law.