Visas: Digital Technology
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has made a human rights impact assessment of the transition from Biometric Resident Permits to eVisas.
Answered by Seema Malhotra
An Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) was completed on the first phase of the roll out of eVisas to EEA nationals on 9 November 2020, which built on the Policy Equality Statement (PES) for the EUSS which was produced in 2017 and published on the gov.uk website on 18 November 2020:
Policy equality statement: EU Settlement Scheme (accessible version) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
A separate EIA considering equalities issues in relation to the use of digital only right to work and rent checks was published on gov.uk in June 2022:
We are also in the process of reviewing our eVisas EIA, setting out further analysis of the equalities issues to reflect the current stage in the roll out of eVisas. We plan to publish an up-to-date version of this EIA on gov.uk in due course, and we will continue to keep the issue under review.
Human rights impacts on those with protected characteristics are part of the EIA consideration.
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