The UK is increasingly privatising its immigration and border arrangements drawing criticism from migrant and refugee advocates that corporate players are profiting at the expense of human rights.

Travel agents, airlines, IT, surveillance and service companies are among dozens contracted to the UK Home Office’s immigration and border programs.

A report by news website The Ferret identified 213 private companies involved in deportations, surveillance, border construction and detention in Europe and the US – including at least 70 firms linked to UK Government contracts.

Critics have condemned the companies for profiting from the UK Government’s ‘hostile environment’ policy on immigrants, arguing that it is “systemically unfair and unsafe”. 

The Home Office said in reply it would continue to deport “foreign criminals” and that private contractors are not responsible for making immigration decisions.

Ten airlines have allegedly been involved in deportations including Easyjet, British Airways and Qatar Airways, the report said.

It said the Home Office spent almost $A21 million on deportation charter flights. At least 828 people were removed by air, more than double the 410 removed on similar charters in 2019.

According to another report by business research group Corporate Watch, research group deportations from the UK cannot take place without “extensive collaboration” from businesses.

It says the majority of deportations are on scheduled flights, not chartered, with deportees sitting at the back handcuffed to “private security escorts”, amongst business or holiday travellers.

The report says tech firms operating in the sector include Israeli surveillance company Cellebrite. It received $280 million from the UK Border Force and Immigration Enforcement. 

Cellebrite sells software aimed at interrogating asylum applications which data from devices which the user may believe has been deleted.

Global form Delloitte Digital has worked on the $A500 million Immigration Platform Technologies program which was launched in 2014 to manage immigration, visa, and asylum applications and casework. 

Financial firm Experian has also been contracted by the UK Home Office.

In response to a parliamentary question in 2018, the UK Government confirmed it contracted Experian – one of the UK’s leading credit reference agencies – to conduct financial checks for immigration purposes.

Critics of the UK Government’s treatment of migrants include People & Planet, a network of student campaign groups across the UK.

The group’s spokesman said: “What this research clearly outlines is that the cruel and dehumanising hostile environment policies enforced by the Home Office are increasingly facilitated by a network of corporate actors seeking to profit from the brutality inflicted upon those that move and seek to move across borders”. 

“It is vital that this expanding space of corporate involvement in border policing meets fierce, vocal and organised resistance from those that recognise the dangers of attaching profit motive to border enforcement.

“We must make it clear that ourselves and our institutions will be unwilling to engage with any company, as customers or as investors, that is complicit in facilitating the deeply racist hostile environment,” People & Planet said.

Activists Bella Sankey, of the Detention Action group said the UK’s deportation system was “systemically unfair and unsafe”.

“Deportation law specifically sanctions child cruelty in family separation cases and mass charter flight expulsions prevent access to justice. Airlines that want to maintain their family-friendly reputations and uphold corporate social responsibility values should halt their involvement in deportations until fundamental reforms are made,” she

The UK Government has been criticised in recent years for what critics say is a hard-line stance on immigration.