ICE agents have new tools to track and ID people : NPR

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is acquiring powerful new surveillance tools to identify and monitor people.

These include apps that allow federal agents to point a cell phone at someone's face to potentially identify them and determine their immigration status in the field, as well as apps that can scan irises. Recently licensed software can provide “access to vast amounts of location data,” according to archive website, and ICE recently renewed a previously frozen contract with a company that makes spyware that can hack cell phones.

Federal agency also building up social networks observation, with new contracts for artificial intelligence softwareand there is I'm considering hiring 24/7 teams of contractors tasked with checking various databases and platforms such as Facebook and TikTok and creating dossiers on users.

The Trump administration is eager to use new technology as it tries to increase the number of deportations to a million a year, a goal that could be aided by using technology to identify and locate noncitizens facing removal.

Some are democratic members of Congress raise legal concerns about new technologies and ask questions ICE, which remain unanswered. A group of US senators has called on ICE to stop using a facial recognition mobile app.

“Americans have the right to walk in public without being monitored,” Democratic Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts told NPR.

Privacy and civil liberties advocates also warn that these surveillance tools pose a serious threat and say there is not enough regulation or oversight to ensure that federal agents use new technologies in ways that protect privacy and constitutional rights.

“Immigration powers are being used to justify mass surveillance of everyone,” said Emily Tucker, executive director of the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law.

“The purpose of this is to create a powerful surveillance apparatus that can be used for any kind of policing that people in power decide to undertake,” she said.

Scanning teenagers' faces

How ICE and Border Patrol agents use these technologies can be seen in a video posted on the website TikTok last month from an account in Aurora, Illinois. The video shows a group of masked Border Patrol agents jump out of an SUV and approach two young men on bicycles on the sidewalk near East Aurora High School. The agents ask them for their citizenship and show them their identification.

One of the youths, who films the incident and does not appear on camera, says he is 16 years old and a US citizen, but does not have identification.

“Can you do a facial?” The officer is heard asking. The other officer then takes out a cell phone and points at it as if taking a photo. He then asks the young man's name, and shortly thereafter the video ends.

The person who posted the video did not respond to the message, but in the comments to the post said that his cousins ​​were filmed in the video. NPR was able to verify where the video was filmed.

It is unclear what app the officer used. ICE has a facial recognition mobile app known as Mobile Fortify, which uses images of people's faces and fingerprints to try to identify people in the field. The Department of Homeland Security document says the app searches Customs and Border Protection databases for matches. including photographs taken as people entered and exited the United States., and can return information such as the subject's name, date of birth, alien number, possible citizenship status, and “possible residence status.”

Another section of the document says ICE will receive “limited biographical information” if a person matches a photo on a specific list of targets called the Border Fortification Hot List, and non-matches “will not return any additional information.”

It also states that people cannot refuse to be photographed and that the photographs are kept for 15 years, even if they do not match.

existence of the application and documentation for How does this work Both were first reported by 404 Media, which obtained the DHS document through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Outlet this week also reported that Customs and Border Protection has made available a different facial recognition app, Mobile Identity, in the Google app store for state and local law enforcement agencies tasked with working with ICE.

David Beer, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, called it a “big leap” that DHS can now have agents in the field simply point their phone at someone's face and instantly learn details about them.

“The whole idea of ​​anonymity in public really goes away when an administration or government can immediately identify who you are,” Beer said, adding that the technology could have a chilling effect on people's willingness to attend public protests.

A group of Democratic senators led by Markey called ICE in September, stop using the technology and answer questions about its use. ICE did not answer their questions and senators renewed their demand on Monday.

“This type of on-demand surveillance is terrifying and should alert us all,” Markey told NPR. “It limits freedom of speech and undermines privacy. Ultimately it undermines our democracy.”

In their letter, the senators ask a long list of questions, including the legal basis for using the app, how it was developed, whether U.S. citizens are included in the database of photos that the app matches, whether there are rules for using it to identify U.S. citizens and whether it has been used to identify protesters and minors.

Markey told NPR that facial recognition is unreliable, especially for people of color, and expressed concern that the Trump administration is “using this technology as a weapon against anyone who disagrees with the government.”

Neither ICE nor DHS responded to NPR's specific questions about facial recognition mobile apps.

An ICE spokesperson said in a statement: “There is nothing new here. For years, law enforcement agencies across the country have used technological innovation to combat crime. ICE is no different. Using various forms of technology to support investigations and law enforcement activities helps arrest gang members, child sex offenders, murderers, drug traffickers, identity thieves and more, while respecting civil liberties and privacy interests.”

DHS sent a statement saying, “Although the Department does not discuss specific vendors or operational tools, any technology used by DHS Components must meet regulatory requirements and oversight.”

The growing use of facial recognition technology comes as DHS Released Proposed Rule it would expand the agency's ability to request biometric data from noncitizens and their U.S. citizen relatives when they apply to change their immigration status, such as a green card or citizenship. Under this rule, the agency can request facial images, iris scans, fingerprints, palmprints, voiceprints and even DNA.

The public has until early January to comment on the rule.

Spyware delivered by text

In August, the Trump administration reborn previously suspended contract with Paragon Solutions, an Israeli spyware company. A Paragon tool called Graphite was used in Europe earlier this year to target journalists and civil society representativesAccording to Citizen Lab, a research group at the University of Toronto that specializes in spyware.

Little is known about how ICE uses Paragon Solutions technology and legal groups recently sued DHS for writing about this and Cellebrite tools. ICE did not respond to NPR's questions about the contract with Paragon Solutions and whether it concerns Graphite or another tool.

Graphite can start monitoring a phone, including encrypted messages, by simply sending a message to the number. The user does not need to click on the link or message.

“Essentially, he has complete access to your phone,” said Jeramie Scott, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a legal and policy group focused on privacy issues. “This is an extremely dangerous surveillance technology that truly runs afoul of our Fourth Amendment protections.”

Addition to an already robust surveillance infrastructure

DHS has continually expanded its surveillance capabilities under both Republican and Democratic administrations since its founding after 9/11.

As of 2022 report The Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology found that ICE was able to locate three out of four American adults using utility records and scanned a third of the driver's license photos of American adults.

But Georgetown's Tucker, who co-authored the report, said the situation is more dramatic now because of the Trump administration's actions. aggressive stance on immigration control and a willingness to push legal boundaries.

“Even if there were no strong laws and regulations to protect rights, there were some rules that had been considered unviolated by virtually every presidential administration up to this point,” Tucker said of the situation several years ago. “Not only have the norms disappeared, but this administration is willing to break any existing laws.”

NPR's Martin Kaste contributed to this report.

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