UK Announces Tech Partnership to Curb Migrant Arrivals

A new alliance between law enforcement and social media giants was launched by the British government on Saturday in an effort to combat online information that encourages migrants to enter the UK illegally via small boats.

The Conservative administration, which was behind in the polls a year before the general election, had pledged to put a stop to perilous small boat crossings of the English Channel from northern France, but it ran into a number of obstacles in carrying out its plans.

Plans to controversially transfer undocumented immigrants to Rwanda have stalled in the courts, while efforts to house asylum seekers on a barge in southern England to cut down on expenses have been repeatedly put on hold.

The announced partnership between Britain's National Crime Agency and companies including Meta, TikTok and X (former Twitter) will target content linked to people smuggling, such as offers of false documents, group discounts, free spaces for children and false claims of safe passage, Downing Street said.

"To stop the boats, we have to tackle the business model of vile people smugglers at source," UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said.

"That means clamping down on their attempts to lure people into making these illegal crossings and profit from putting lives at risk.

"This new commitment from tech firms will see us redouble our efforts to fight back against these criminals, working together to shut down their vile trade," he added.

But the main opposition Labour party's home affairs spokeswoman, Yvette Cooper, said the action was "too little, too late", accusing the government of having "no idea how to fix the mess they created".

Immigration, both legal and illegal, has long been a contentious political topic in Britain, and the 2016 Brexit vote, which resulted in the UK leaving the EU, was largely fought over it.

On a risky path that has seen an increase in traffic every year since 2018, more people have traveled there every year. In 2022, more than 45,000 migrants landed on the coasts of southeast England on small boats, a 60 percent yearly increase.

The United Nations criticized Sunak's administration last month for passing a contentious rule that forbids anybody traveling over the English Channel or any other "illegal" route from requesting refuge.

Source: AFP