54 JUDITH BEYER given, the Home Office then issues a first instance decision, against which the applicant can appeal if it results in a rejection of their asylum claim. Once denied asylum, the applicant is advised to seek legal representation. Most of the rejected applications are appealed to a so-called First-tier Tribunal. If the appeal is refused there, it can be appealed to an Upper Tribunal. Hearings and appeals are time-consuming, and there has been a considerable backlog of undecided asylum cases for several years. Caseworkers are often under pressure not only to increase the number of cases processed, but also to reject applications (Bolt 2017; Brewer 2018; Syal 2024). In 2024, half of the initial asylum claims were at first denied.4 They can subsequently be appealed and it is at the appeal stage that lawyers request external experts to report on the ‘case’. Anthropological Expertise and Ethics In the context of representing their clients who seek to reverse their denied asylum claim in First-tier and Upper Tribunals, British law firms usually contact experts who, in addition to providing information about the country of origin (COI), are supposed to answer in writing specific questions about the authenticity of the identification documents presented by the person, the plausibility of the narrated flight history and other details. Anthropologists, along with regional scholars, are considered well positioned to serve in adversarial (common law) systems that rely on outside expertise, as they not only have knowledge about individual groups or regions but also are usually up to date with the historical context and current political events in the country. The COI reports are presented to judges and taken into account as the courts see fit when passing judgment. Experts have to perform an argumentative balancing act as, on the one hand, they are supposed to remain neutral, but on the other hand they are often required to answer guiding questions that the law firms pose in the interests of successfully appealing the decision by the Home Office (see also Beyer 2022; Höhne 2016; Low and Merry 2010). It is common for British law firms, which are pressed for time and resources, to contact several COI experts at the same time when searching for someone suitable to write a report on their client’s case. As a COI expert, I usually receive the entire case file already in the very first email, that is, before I have even agreed to work on a case. These files contain all official documents created by the Home Office, such as interview transcripts, the asylum decision and the judge’s decision if the lawyers are intending to appeal a First-tier Tribunal’s decision or want to submit a fresh claim. In addition to state documentation, case files can also contain the applicant’s medical records, psychological or psychiatric reports, reference letters from non-governmental organisations or community groups in support of the applicant, and country of origin information the applicant has assembled themselves. Since I started working as a COI expert a decade ago, I have encountered only one law firm that had a policy of data protection in place. In all the other instances, nothing was done to protect their client’s identity other than trust in the integrity of the COI expert. Being accustomed to treating my interlocutors’ personal data with the utmost care, I was surprised that in a legal context the right to privacy and to the secure handling of data seemed to be