President Donald Trump made countering immigration one among his flagship points throughout final yr’s presidential marketing campaign, promising an unprecedented variety of deportations.
In his first eight months in workplace, that promise become round 350,000 deportations, a determine that features deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (round 200,000), Customs and Border Safety (greater than 132,000), and nearly 18,000 self-deportations, according to CNN.
ICE has taken heart stage in Trump’s mass deportation marketing campaign, raiding houses, workplaces, and public parks seeking undocumented immigrants. To assist its efforts, the ICE has at its disposal a number of applied sciences able to figuring out and surveilling people and communities.
Here’s a recap of among the know-how that ICE has in its digital arsenal.
Clearview AI facial recognition
Clearview AI is probably probably the most well-known facial recognition firm at the moment. For years, the corporate promised to have the ability to determine any face by looking out by means of a big database of images it had scraped from the web.
On Monday, 404 Media reported that ICE has signed a contract with the corporate to assist its legislation enforcement arm Homeland Safety Investigations (HSI), “with capabilities of figuring out victims and offenders in youngster sexual exploitation instances and assaults in opposition to legislation enforcement officers.”
In line with a authorities procurement database, the contract signed final week is value $3.75 million.
ICE has had other contracts with Clearview AI within the final couple of years. In September 2024, the company bought “forensic software program” from the corporate, a deal value $1.1 million. The yr earlier than, ICE paid Clearview AI almost $800,000 for “facial recognition enterprise licenses.”
Clearview AI didn’t reply to a request for remark.
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Do you’ve got extra details about ICE and the know-how it makes use of? We’d like to learn the way this impacts you. From a non-work system, you possibly can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Sign at +1 917 257 1382, or by way of Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or e mail. You can also contact TechCrunch by way of SecureDrop.
Paragon cellphone spy ware
In September 2024, ICE signed a contract value $2 million with Israeli spy ware maker Paragon Options. Virtually instantly, the Biden administration issued a “cease work order,” putting the contract under review to verify it complied with an government order on the federal government’s use of economic spy ware.
Due to that order, for almost a yr, the contract remained in limbo. Then, final week, the Trump administration lifted the cease work order, successfully reactivating the contract.
At this level, it’s unclear what’s the standing of Paragon’s relationship with ICE in follow.
The data entry from final week mentioned that the contract with Parago is for “a totally configured proprietary answer together with license, {hardware}, guarantee, upkeep, and coaching.” Virtually talking, except the {hardware} set up and coaching have been achieved final yr, it could take a while for ICE to have Paragon’s system up and working.
It’s additionally unclear if the spy ware will likely be utilized by ICE or HSI, an company whose investigations are usually not restricted to immigration, but in addition cowl on-line youngster sexual exploitation, human trafficking, monetary fraud, and more.
Paragon has lengthy tried to painting itself as an “moral” and accountable spy ware maker, and now has to resolve if it’s moral to work with Trump’s ICE. Quite a bit has occurred to Paragon within the final yr. In December, American personal fairness large AE Industrial bought Paragon, with a plan to merge it with cybersecurity firm Pink Lattice, based on Israeli tech information web site Calcalist.
In an indication that the merger might have taken place, when TechCrunch reached out to Paragon for touch upon the reactivation of the ICE contract final week, we have been referred to RedLattice’s new vice chairman of promoting and communications Jennifer Iras.
RedLattice’s Iras didn’t reply to a request for remark for this text, nor for final week’s article.
In the previous couple of months, Paragon has been ensnared in a spy ware scandal in Italy, the place the federal government has been accused of spying on journalists and immigration activists. In response, Paragon reduce ties with Italy’s intelligence companies.
LexisNexis’ authorized and public data databases
For years, ICE has used the authorized analysis and public data information dealer LexisNexis to assist its investigations.
In 2022, two non-profits obtained paperwork by way of Freedom of Data Act requests, which revealed that ICE carried out greater than 1.2 million searches over seven months utilizing a software referred to as Accurint Digital Crime Heart. ICE used the software to verify the background info of migrants.
A yr later, The Intercept revealed that ICE was utilizing LexisNexis to detect suspicious exercise and examine migrants earlier than they even dedicated against the law, a program {that a} critic mentioned enabled “mass surveillance.”
According to public records, LexisNexis at present supplies ICE “with a legislation enforcement investigative database subscription (LEIDS) which permits entry to public data and industrial information to assist legal investigations.”
This yr, ICE has paid $4.7 million to subscribe to the service.
LexisNexis spokesperson Jennifer Richman informed TechCrunch that ICE has used the corporate’s product “information and analytics options for many years, throughout a number of administrations.”
“Our dedication is to assist the accountable and moral use of knowledge, in full compliance with legal guidelines and rules, and for the safety of all residents of the USA,” mentioned Richman, who added that LexisNexis “companions with greater than 7,500 federal, state, native, tribal, and territorial companies throughout the USA to advance public security and safety.”
Surveillance large Palantir
Knowledge analytics and surveillance know-how large Palantir has signed several contracts with ICE within the final yr. The largest contract, value $18.5 million from September 2024, is for a database system referred to as “Investigative Case Administration,” or ICM.
The contract for ICM goes again to 2022, when Palantir signed a $95.9 million take care of Palantir. The Peter Thiel-founded firm’s relationship with ICE dates again to the early 2010s.
Earlier this yr, 404 Media, which has reported extensively on the know-how powering Trump’s deportation efforts, and particularly Palantir’s relationship with ICE, revealed particulars of how the ICM database works. The tech information web site reported that it noticed a latest model of the database, which permits ICE to filter folks based mostly on their immigration standing, bodily traits, legal affiliation, location information, and extra.
404 Media cited “a supply accustomed to the database,” who mentioned it’s made up of ‘tables upon tables’ of knowledge and that it will probably construct stories that present, for instance, people who find themselves on a selected kind of visa who got here into the nation at a selected port of entry, who got here from a selected nation, and who’ve a selected hair coloration (or any variety of tons of of knowledge factors).”
The software, and Palantir’s relationship with ICE, was controversial sufficient that sources throughout the firm leaked to 404 Media an internal wiki the place Palantir justifies working with Trump’s ICE.
Palantir can also be creating a software referred to as “ImmigrationOS,” based on a contract value $30 million revealed by Business Insider.
ImmigrationOS is alleged to be designed to streamline the “choice and apprehension operations of unlawful aliens,” give “close to real-time visibility” into self-deportations, and monitor folks overstaying their visa, based on a document first reported on by Wired.