“I’ve seen the applications and I don’t like them,” says a DHS official who left this year. “Abuse is rife. I imagine it’s being used in ways that weren’t intended.”
He highlighted the risks of misidentification, noting that facial recognition often results in high error rates for people of color. “I’m not convinced that there is any oversight from serious people who understand” the technology, he adds.
In September, ICE renewed its access to a facial recognition search engine called Clearview AIwhich has been banned in some states. Previous contracts and confidentiality documents called for it to be used for “child sexual exploitation cases,” but this year’s contract added “assaults against law enforcement” — which former officials fear could extend to protesters. The company refused comment.
Clearview AI
ICE and Customs and Border Protection also collect DNA from detainees and asylum seekers, according to a privacy disclosure. A lawyer said he represented a U.S. citizen who was administered a cheek swab while wrongfully detained. The samples are stored in an FBI database where they can be queried under various laws. law enforcement agencies.
ICE also signed a contract with BI² technologiesa seller of portable eye scanners. Former officials have questioned the need for the devices, noting that the agency had few, if any, iris scanners to research. “My first question is why?” says a former privacy chief. “What do you hope to get out of it? If they just collect irises and biometrics, that’s a problem for me.”
BI²’s registered lobbyist, Ballard Partners, has close ties to the Trump administration, raising money for his campaign and previously employing Attorney General Pam Bondi and the White House chief of staff. Susie Wiles.
BI² technologies
Pressure disclosures to show that Ballard Also works on in the name of of A host of other technology companies TO DO business with ICE, including Palantir; DNA essay farm SCN International; cell–phone intercept supplier L3Harris; open–source data broker Babel Street; And THE Thomas Reuters subsidiary sale Clear. Ballard denied has comment.
“They’re spending a lot of money on things they may not even use, to benefit people who may be close to the administration,” says Dave Maass, director of investigations at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy nonprofit that monitors ICE surveillance purchases. “They are moving very quickly.”
Procurement records also show that ICE obtained tools that previous administrations considered problematic.
In August, ICE lifted a freeze on a $2 million contract with Israeli spyware company Paragon Solutions, which sells a phone.–hacking tool called Graphite. It was used by the Italian government to target European journalists with iMessage and WhatsApp attacks, according to CitizenLab researchers.
The contract was suspended by the Biden White House, which had banned the use of spyware sold by foreign companies concerned about human rights. Paragon was later bought by the United States–private equity firm based AE Industrial Partners, which also controls Department of Defense contractor REDLattice.
