The UK's privacy watchdog is facing calls for parliamentary scrutiny after campaigners accused it of failing to get a grip on the Home Office's glitch-plagued eVisa system. A coalition of 20 immigration, digital rights, and human rights organizations, including the Open Rights Group, has written to the chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, urging MPs to open an inquiry into what it describes as the Information Commissioner's Office's (ICO) failure to enforce data protection law against the Home Office. The groups want the committee to examine the eVisa program as part of its wider inquiry into government data security. The campaigners argue that the technical problems dogging eVisas go well beyond the odd software glitch. Since the scheme's rollout, users have reported being locked out of their accounts, unable to prove their immigration status, or discovering that their personal information had become entangled with that of unrelated people. According to the letter, those failures have prevented people from entering the UK, taking jobs, enrolling in education, and accessing benefits. "As the 'Exclusion by Design' report shows, eVisa failures prevent individuals from proving their status when they need it to enter the country, from applying for jobs or getting a pay rise, from enrolling in education, from claiming benefits," the letter states. "The human price of non-compliance is high and unjustifiable." The Home Office has acknowledged the mistakes and says it is working to fix them, but the organizations argue it has repeatedly declined to disclose how many incidents it has recorded or to set out a timetable for resolving systemic faults. Their criticism is directed as much at the regulator as the department running the service. The groups say they first asked the ICO to investigate the eVisa scheme in November 2025, alleging breaches of UK data protection law, including failures to carry out and publish Data Protection Impact Assessments before and during the rollout. Eight months later, they say no formal enforcement action has followed. The letter also cites an FOI disclosure, which reveals that between December 2023 and December 2025, the ICO received 851 complaints about the Home Office. When asked how many were about eVisas, the watchdog said finding out would exceed the Freedom of Information Act's cost limit. The letter argues "there is a risk of reduced scrutiny towards public bodies and diminished responsiveness to public complaints by the ICO," adding that the regulator's recent memorandum of understanding with the government and revised complaints policy risk undermining public confidence in its independence. The organizations are urging MPs to investigate what they describe as the ICO's "failure to carry out their oversight duties under the law," as well as the Home Office's handling of eVisa data and governance. They also want Parliament to require the department to publish figures on data security incidents, complaints, and support requests related to the system. Neither the Home Office nor the ICO responded to The Register's questions. The intervention comes weeks after Information Commissioner John Edwards stepped down, leaving his successor to inherit awkward questions about the regulator's willingness to police Whitehall's handling of personal data. ®
