Committee publication · Correspondence · 25 March 2026

Letter from the Minister for Migration & Citizenship relating to the Digital ID evidence session on 3 March 17.03.2026

Inquiry: Harnessing the potential of new digital forms of identification

Summary

The Minister for Migration & Citizenship responds to questions from the Home Affairs Committee following a 3 March 2026 evidence session on digital identity. The letter addresses right-to-work checking requirements, statutory employer duties under immigration law, and reported data quality issues with the eVisa system, including error resolution timelines and the prevalence of mixed-identity records in the immigration database.

Key findings

All UK employers have a statutory duty to prevent illegal working since 1997; since 2008 they can fulfil this by conducting prescribed right-to-work checks before employment, applicable to all nationalities including British and Irish citizens.
eVisa system resolves 97% of straightforward cases within 5 working days and complex cases within 15 working days; imminent travel cases are resolved within 2 working days in 93% of cases as of February 2026.
In February 2026, approximately 4,100 error reports were submitted weekly via webform; 40% were identified as having no actual error, with top issues being incorrect name display, unavailable eVisas, and access problems.
The immigration database contains over 220 million identity records, of which under 0.004% could be affected by mixed-identity issues (erroneous matching of multiple persons' records), typically due to human error or biometric similarity.
Over 99.9% of eVisa interactions in February 2026 (24 million total checks) did not result in reported issues; escalation processes resolve the most urgent cases within 24 hours and lowest urgency within 120 hours.

Tone

Factual

Topics

immigration-policydigital-identityright-to-workdata-quality

Key actors

Mike Tapp MP, Dame Karen Bradley MP, Home Affairs Committee, UK Home Office, Border Force

Notable line

“… over 99.9% of interactions did not result in any issues being reported. Where an error has occurred which requires the relevant Home Office teams to take action this can be due …”

Key Quotes

“Employers should verify the right to work of all prospective employees in order to comply with their duty to prevent illegal working and avoid civil or criminal sanctions for employing someone …”
— Mike Tapp MP · On right-to-work checking requirements

“We are consistently operating within these targets in over 97% of cases, based on the most recent data covering February”
— Mike Tapp MP · On eVisa error resolution performance

“Currently 7% of webform queries received are complex technical issues.”
— Mike Tapp MP · On the breakdown of reported eVisa problems

“… under 0.004% of cases could be affected by a mixed identity issue.”
— Mike Tapp MP · On the prevalence of erroneous identity matching in the immigration database

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Source · parliament.uk record ↗