The Home Office operates at least eight artificial-intelligence-powered surveillance towers on the South-East Coast of England. Critics say that these towers are contributing to the deaths of migrants in the English Channel.
The Migrants Rights Network and researcher Samuel Story are working together on a project that maps the state of England’s coast surveillance. There are eight autonomous surveillance towers operating in the area between Hastings & Margate, where asylum seekers often land. Two more have been demolished or relocated. Home Office has acknowledged, in response to the Freedom of Information (FoI), that increased border surveillance may put migrants crossing the Channel at “even greater risk”. The 5.5 meter tall Maritime Sentry Towers, created by US defence company Anduril – the Elvish name of Aragorn’s sword in The Lord of the Rings (19459043)which translates to “flame of the West”, are equipped with thermal, electro-optical and radar imaging sensors. They can detect “small boats” as well as other waterborne objects within a 9-mile radius.
The towers are powered by Lattice, an AI-powered system that is marketed to defence organisations. They can autonomously piece together data from thousands of sources (such a sensors or drones operated By Anduril). “real-time understanding the environment”
By April 2025, MRN & Storey have identified Anduril Towers at Fairlight Coastguard Station, Dungeness Lighthouse (19459042) Hythe Ranges East Lookout (19459042) Shorncliffe Army Camp (19459042) Capel le-Ferne Cliffs, Dover Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre, Walmer and Kingsdown Golf Club (), and Ramsgate Port ()
When A ninth was identified near Jury’s Gap, just outside Lydd Ranges MRN reported that these structures have either been removed or relocated.
Increasing militaryization
The report added that the towers are a “physical mark of where the hostile environment begins”contribute to increasing militarisation at borders, and encourage people to take more dangerous routes.
The towers are not neutral. They are active agents of an increasingly automated border apartheid system designed to filter, classify and repel those deemed ‘undesirable,'” said MRN. Border Security Bill– which seeks to give border authorities counter-terrorism-style powers to deal with migrants – people seeking safety are increasingly framed as a national security threat, leading to their further dehumanisation.
The report stated that “these towers and their AI algorithm do not make asylum seeking safer.” “They enforce border exclusion and apartheid: acting as the first port of entrance into the UK’s hostile digital environment. While autonomous surveillance towers, drones and other forms border securitisation raise important questions about potentially deadly consequences for migrants they should also make you question the wider encroachment of surveillance and tech companies in our daily lives.
Ultimately, surveillance is implemented without consent. We have the right to demand transparency, and the ability of scrutinising this technology, as well as what it means for our human rights. He created and releasedon the basis of his research into the Anduril Towers. The biggest question is whether the data collected by the towers are used to determine asylum claims and whether they could be used in criminal prosecutions for migrants in the context the upcoming Border Security Bill. Computer Weekly contacted Anduril about the claims made regarding its autonomous surveillance towers but received no acknowledgement nor response by the time of publication. Computer Weekly contacted the Home Office regarding every claim made in the article, including how data captured or generated by the towers are used in asylum cases, but received no response at the time of publication.
Threat to migrant’s safety
MRN stated that, although the Home Office was reluctant to share information about the towers because it could aid “organised criminal groups”it had also tacitly acknowledged that increased border surveillance poses a threat to the safety of migrant.
The disclosure of the requested information may aid criminals who are trying to facilitate dangerous small boat crossings. They could be informed about the technology used against them and develop countervailing activities to increase their chances of success. It saidas a response to Storey’s FoI request.
It also noted that if details about these towers were revealed “migrants could be placed in greater danger by making them harder to detect by UK or French patrols engaged with safety of life at Sea (Solas).
The Home Office decided that all information in the request would be exempted under section 31 of the law enforcement exemption, which allows authorities to withhold data if they are “likely to compromise… the operation… of immigration controls”.
Heightened risk
MRN reports that despite the Home Office’s reluctance to be transparent, the response to Storey clearly identifies that increased border surveillance is a factor in migrant deaths. “It’s no secret that increased border surveillance and policing has a significant impact on migrant mortality. The government is pushing migrants to more remote and dangerous crossings and forcing them to rely increasingly on intermediaries (so called people smugglers). UN’s Missing Migrant Project ( ) – and The high death rate at the US-Mexico Border is where the Electronic Frontier Foundation has identified 563 of these surveillance towers MRN said that as autonomous surveillance technology becomes “increasingly embedd along the English coast, the English Channel could emerge as its own deadly frontier”. It stated that this process had already occurred at the US-Mexico Border. The towers are part of a deterrence systemthat is designed to push migration routes to more “rugged terrain” and has led to a notable increase in migrant deaths. It is not hard to see that the UK government used these towers to implement a border apartheid policy, using this AI surveillance assemblage in order to further militarise southern maritime border,” the report said. Storey drew comparisons between US border practices and UK border practices. He said that while the US border towers are strategically placed along the harsh terrain on the border with Mexico as a deterrent to migrants, the UK towers are situated in plain view in the relatively quaint English countryside. He added that this framing, as well as the wide array of technologies available to state authorities for surveillance of an area as small and the English Channel, begs the questions of why people continue to die.
What is the technology doing? It’s ostensibly used for humanitarian purposes but is it really succeeding in what it’s claimed to be doing?” he questioned, adding that the UK government should open safe and legal pathways to the UK instead of relying expensive technology like AI to “enforce the border” that keeps out people in desperate need.
Concerns about data storage and transparency
Although the Financial Times covered Home Office’s Anduril Contract when it was announced in the Financial Times, MRN and Storey say that little has been done to examine the towers afterward, and they are concerned at the department’s unwillingness to be transparent, even as a response to FOIs. They cited the lack of information about contract details, tower locations (which Storey has manually identified and logged), data sharing agreements that underpin their operation, and the potential use of the information collected by towers to determine asylum cases of those crossing the Channel.
The only contract details confirmed so far are in a FoI response to researcher Anna Christoforou. It revealed that the Anduril contract is valued at PS16.087.370 and runs from 22.06.2022 to 22.06.2025. Storey stated that the FoI system, in his experience, is more about opacity and transparency than trying to be transparent. It’s like playing a game of cat and Mouse with the Home Office to share information about border and immigration issues. “It is obvious that they do not intend to disclose information which would lead to public awareness, dialogue, transparency, etc…. There’s no interest in a public debate about this surveillance of individuals,” he said.
Tim Turner, an independent data protection and FoI expert, said that the law enforcement exemption could have been misused if the department had not completed a “prejudice-test”which requires organisations balance the potential detrimenta l impacts of disclosure against the public interest value.
He said that the exemption was expressed in such a way as to imply that it had been applied in a blanket manner. “That’s to say they haven’t used the prejudice element but there is zero evidence that has been done.” The exemption does not apply if the towers haven’t applied it.
MRN, Storey and others also expressed similar concerns about the lack of transparency regarding where the data was ultimately stored. They believe that the most likely place to find this information is in the Oracle or Amazon Web Services infrastructure.
They stated that because the Home Office confirmed via FoI to MRN in September 2024, that data from its electronic Visa platform are hosted on AWS that it is possible that this provider could be used to store and process data collected by the towers. MRN pointed out that Anduril uses AWS Marketplace for testing LatticeOS with potential customers. This indicates that AWS will be used to host Anduril’s data once long-term agreements are formalised. According to the Marketplace page, “Anduril Lattice Operating System is hosted on a Kubernetes Cluster in EC2″a cloud computing platform offered by AWS.
Oracle and Anduril have a partnership that will bring Lattice globally to Oracle’s cloud infrastructure. According to an Oracle page“Anduril to deploy Lattice” Oracle Cloud Isolated National Security Regions are Oracle’s air gapped cloud infrastructure for mission critical, classified defense and intelligence workloads. Lattice is also available in Oracle Cloud Regions (19459042) – Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud (19459042), and Oracle Government Clouds are located in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.”
Computer Weekly asked Anduril and Home Office to confirm where the data collected by the towers was stored, but neither responded.
MRN and Storey are awaiting more FoI responses relating to each tower identified. They ask for details on any Data Protection Impact Assessments or Equality Impact Assessments as well as privacy safeguards, agreements about data sharing and information regarding the involvement of private firms.
Next stepsMRN encourages people to take a variety of actions to challenge Home Office’s use surveillance towers. This includes asking those who live near one to write their local MP to express concerns, highlighting the existence of additional towers to MRN and Storey, as well as setting up local campaigns to oppose the towers.
MRN encourages those who have crossed the Channel since June 2022 to submit a subject access request to the Home Office to determine if their data has been captured.
