The Upper Tribunal has issued steerage on the use of materials from an applicant’s social media accounts in age assessment proceedings in R (BG) v LB Hackney [2022] UKUT 00338 (IAC).
The temporary info
The normal instructions made by the Upper Tribunal in age assessment proceedings required the asylum seeker to provide entry to their social media accounts, together with their usernames and passwords, for native authority respondents to examine. Where the applicant had a Facebook account, their “full timeline of activities” and “locations of access” needs to be given.
BG was an age-disputed asylum-seeker. After the normal instructions have been made in BG’s case, it was confirmed that no utility had been made by the native authority for particular disclosure of any social media materials at the case administration listening to which preceded the making of these instructions. The Judge had directed they have been “standard” instructions, made as a matter “of course”.
The problem to the normal instructions
BG challenged these instructions as being opposite to his rights to personal life and freedom of expression below Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This is as a result of they have been too broad and ill-defined to be proportionate, sufficiently clear and particular to be succesful of truthful and efficient compliance, or per the duty of candour.
He submitted that instructions for particular disclosure needs to be made on the utility of a…
