“PROFOUNDLY inhumane” powers allowing mobile phones to be seized from migrants without even arresting them came into force today.

The Home Office insisted the seizures will help gather intelligence on smuggling gangs organising small boat crossings to Britain.

But refugee campaigners hit out at the “shocking disregard for the fundamental right to privacy.”

Freedom from Torture associate director Natasha Tsangarides said: “Subjecting desperate and traumatised men, women and children to invasive searches – including examinations of their clothing and even inside their mouths – immediately after they have survived a terrifying Channel crossing is profoundly inhumane.

“Applying these powers indiscriminately to everyone arriving by small boat risks treating all refugees as a security threat, regardless of evidence, and shows a shocking disregard for the fundamental right to privacy.”

Care4Calais CEO Steve Smith said: “What the government is doing is removing any last communication channels that the survivors of war, torture and persecution may have with loved ones at home, or who are also displaced in another part of the world.

“This practice is inhumane, and had been deemed unlawful under the last Tory government. It’s shameful that a Labour government has legislated to enact this practice.

“It’s time they started acting like a true Labour Party, and started treating their fellow humans with dignity and respect.”

The Refugee Council stressed that it was important that the new powers were used proportionately, warning that phones were a lifeline for vulnerable people who needed to remain in contact with their families.

A solicitor whose firm represents dozens of asylum claimants also questioned whether the government’s plans will comply with a 2022 High Court ruling on mobile phone seizures.

Jonah Mendelsohn, from Wilson Solicitors, told the Guardian that the government has not identified any form of independent oversight to ensure that searches are fair and legal.

Seizures began at the Manston migrant processing centre in Kent, where officers will be able to demand that migrants remove their coats to search for phones and also check their mouths for SIM cards.

Migration and citizenship minister Mike Tapp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “If people have devices… that could hold intelligence, then we are right to be able to seize that. But that doesn’t take away compassion.”