Legal Update - 5 January 2026


Sections of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 (“BSAI 2025”) are in force from 5 January 2026, creating a framework of new, enhanced powers and offences to improve UK border security and to strengthen the asylum and immigration system. The provisions commenced include the following:

  • Schedule 7 to the Data Protection Act 2018 is amended to include ‘The Border Security Commander’ as a competent authority for the purpose of Part 3 of that Act.
  • Section 13 creates two new criminal offences relating to the supply of relevant articles. The first (BS25003) is supplying or offering to supply a relevant article, where the person knows or suspects that the article is to be used by any person, in connection with an offence under section 24 or 25 of the Immigration Act 1971 (“a section 24 or 25 IA 1971 offence”). The second (BS25004) is being concerned in the supplying, offering to supply a relevant article, where the person knows that the article is to be used by any person in connection with a section 24 or 25 IA 1971 offence. 
     
  • Section 14 creates two new criminal offences relating to the handling of articles. The first offence (BS25005) is handling a relevant article, where the person knows or suspects that the article is to be used by any person, in connection with a section 24 or 25 IA 1971 offence. The second (BS25008) is being concerned in the handling of a relevant article, where the person knows that the article is to be used by any person, in connection with a section 24 or 25 IA 1971 offence.
     
  • Section 15 defines ‘relevant article’ for the purpose of the above offences.
     
  • Section 16 creates a new offence (BS25009) of collecting, possessing or viewing information for use in a journey involving the transportation of one or more individuals, from any place outside the UK to any place within the UK, where the entry or arrival of any of those individuals would be an offence under section 24 of the IA 1971.
     
  • Section 20 applies the above offences to things done both inside and outside of the UK.
     
  • New offences (IM71502, IM71503 and IM71504) are created under new section 24(E1A) of the IA 1971, where a person does an act which causes or creates a risk of the death of or serious personal injury to another person during a journey by water from France, Belgium or the Netherlands to the United Kingdom, and that journey results in the commission of an existing offence under section 24(A1), (B1), (D1) or (E1) (Note, subsection (E1) is not yet in force).
     
  • Sections 22 to 29 of the BSAI 2025 create powers to search for, seize and retain a relevant article (an electronic device containing information relating to the commission of a section 24 or 25 IA 1971 offence – section 22(4)).
     
  • Sections 22 and 29 define key expressions for the purposes of sections 23 to 26.
     
  • Section 23 confers a power on an authorised officer (an immigration officer, a National Crime Agency officer and certain constables) to search a relevant person (a persons who has entered the UK unlawfully) for a relevant article, in circumstances where the authorised officer has reasonable grounds to suspect that the person is in possession of a relevant article. Section 24 empowers an authorised officer to seize and retain any relevant article that has been found during a search under section 23 or appears to the officer to be, or to have been, in the possession of a relevant person.
     
  • Section 25 makes provision for an immigration officer to pass on a relevant article to other persons, where there is a reasonable belief that the article or information stored on it has been obtained in consequence of the commission of, or is evidence in relation to, an offence other than the immigration offence, and that person has a function in relation to the investigation of that offence.
     
  • Section 26 confers power on an authorised officer or the Secretary of State to access and examine any information stored on a relevant article (that is retained under section 24 of the Act) copy and retain information that relates, or may relate, to the commission (whether in the past or future) of an offence under sections 25 or 25A of the IA 1971, and use any information retained for any purpose relating to the prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of such an offence.


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