Home Office officials have been rebuked by the advertising watchdog for a misleading radio advert that promoted its registration scheme for EU citizens seeking permanent residency in the UK after Brexit.

The advert for the EU settlement scheme, which aired on 13 April, claimed potential applicants only needed a passport or ID card to complete the online form.

However, a member of the public complained this was misleading as in some cases applicants need to provide proof of address covering the previous five years.

The Advertising Standards Authority upheld the complaint, ruling the advert was misleading and banning it from being broadcast again. The regulator ordered the Home Office to ensure it made it sufficiently clear that some applicants to the scheme would need to provide additional documents beyond their passport or ID card.

“Listeners would likely understand that an official application process of this nature would always require some applicants to provide further information in exceptional cases,” the ASA said in its ruling.

“However, we understood that in 27% of decided adult cases, applicants had been asked to provide documents as evidence of residence. Furthermore, some applicants were also asked for other documents, such as evidence of a family relationship.

“While we acknowledged that applicants were not required specifically to submit ‘proof of address’ (as referenced by the complainant), some were required to submit further documents beyond those stated in the ad.

“We considered that the actual proportion who were asked to submit further documents was likely to go beyond what the audience was likely to understand from the claim. In that context, we considered that the ad did not make sufficiently clear that, in some cases, applicants would need to supply documents beyond their passport or ID card.”

A Home Office spokesman said it completely disagreed with the ASA’s decision, claiming the campaign was factual and complied with all necessary clearance processes for radio advertising.

They added: “The campaign has had a positive impact and encouraged more than 1 million successful applications so far. The scheme is free, straightforward and EU citizens and their family members have plenty of time to apply. All they need to apply is their passport or ID card and to complete an online form.”

As of 31 July, 1,040,600 EU citizens had applied to the settlement scheme. The total number of concluded applications was 951,700. Of these, 64% were granted settled status and 36% pre-settled status.