Twenty immigration, technology and human-rights organisations have written to the Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee calling for an inquiry into the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) over its handling of complaints about the Home Office’s new eVisa system. The letter, seen by the UK Human Rights Blog and sent on Monday morning, alleges “systemic data-protection and accessibility failings” since the eVisa roll-out began on 1 January. Unlike the old biometric residence permit (BRP), the eVisa exists only as a digital record linked to a passport, leaving migrants reliant on an online account to prove status.
![eVisa privacy row deepens as campaigners seek parliamentary probe into ICO oversight]()
For travellers who would rather not leave anything to chance, VisaHQ’s dedicated UK portal offers step-by-step support with eVisa applications, document checks and emergency updates, providing a reliable human back-up when official platforms go offline.
Campaigners say outages have repeatedly locked users out, while airline staff have struggled to verify visas during check-in. They claim that error-correction requests sent via UKVI’s webform routinely breach GDPR deadlines and that visually impaired users cannot access key screens. The ICO has so far rejected calls for enforcement action, arguing that most issues are “service glitches rather than data breaches”. Petitioners counter that the regulator has failed to use its audit powers and note that similar digital-identity schemes in Australia and Canada provide offline fallbacks. For employers the controversy is more than academic: from January 2027 right-to-work checks must be carried out using the eVisa platform for all migrants, and sponsors face civil penalties of up to £60,000 for inadvertent illegal working. If reliability concerns persist, businesses may need to budget for commercial IDVT (Identity Document Validation Technology) services as a contingency. The committee is expected to decide after the summer recess whether to launch a formal inquiry – a move that could force both the Home Office and the ICO to disclose internal risk assessments and incident logs. In the meantime, mobility teams should remind eVisa holders to keep passport details up to date in their UKVI account and to download backup share-codes before travel.
For travellers who would rather not leave anything to chance, VisaHQ’s dedicated UK portal offers step-by-step support with eVisa applications, document checks and emergency updates, providing a reliable human back-up when official platforms go offline.
Campaigners say outages have repeatedly locked users out, while airline staff have struggled to verify visas during check-in. They claim that error-correction requests sent via UKVI’s webform routinely breach GDPR deadlines and that visually impaired users cannot access key screens. The ICO has so far rejected calls for enforcement action, arguing that most issues are “service glitches rather than data breaches”. Petitioners counter that the regulator has failed to use its audit powers and note that similar digital-identity schemes in Australia and Canada provide offline fallbacks. For employers the controversy is more than academic: from January 2027 right-to-work checks must be carried out using the eVisa platform for all migrants, and sponsors face civil penalties of up to £60,000 for inadvertent illegal working. If reliability concerns persist, businesses may need to budget for commercial IDVT (Identity Document Validation Technology) services as a contingency. The committee is expected to decide after the summer recess whether to launch a formal inquiry – a move that could force both the Home Office and the ICO to disclose internal risk assessments and incident logs. In the meantime, mobility teams should remind eVisa holders to keep passport details up to date in their UKVI account and to download backup share-codes before travel.
