ICE’s Expanding Surveillance Arsenal: What You Need to Know

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is quietly deploying a suite of powerful surveillance technologies that have privacy advocates and lawmakers deeply concerned. From facial recognition apps to phone-hacking spyware, these tools represent a dramatic expansion of the government’s ability to identify, track, and monitor people—citizens and non-citizens alike.

Facial recognition in the field

Perhaps the most visible of these new tools is Mobile Fortify, a smartphone app that allows ICE agents to photograph someone’s face and instantly search government databases. The app matches faces against Customs and Border Protection records, including photos taken when people enter and exit the United States, returning details like names, birth dates, and possible citizenship status.

What makes this particularly concerning is that individuals cannot refuse to be photographed, and their images are stored for 15 years—even if there’s no match in the database. This technology was recently caught on video in Aurora, Illinois, where Border Patrol agents used it on teenagers riding bikes near their high school.

A separate app, Mobile Identify, has now been made available to state and local law enforcement agencies that work with ICE, further expanding the reach of this surveillance capability.

Spyware that needs no click

In August, the Trump administration revived a previously paused contract with Paragon Solutions, an Israeli company that makes sophisticated spyware. Their tool, Graphite, can take complete control of a target’s phone—including access to encrypted messages—simply by sending a text message. The recipient doesn’t need to click anything; the surveillance begins automatically.

“It has essentially complete access to your phone,” explains Jeramie Scott, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “It’s an extremely dangerous surveillance tech that really goes against our Fourth Amendment protections.”

The tool has already been used in Europe to target journalists and civil society members, raising serious questions about how ICE might deploy it domestically.

Social media monitoring and location tracking

Beyond facial recognition and spyware, ICE is ramping up its social media surveillance capabilities with AI-driven software contracts. The agency is even considering hiring 24/7 teams of contractors to scour platforms like Facebook and TikTok, creating detailed dossiers on users.

Additionally, newly licensed software gives ICE “access to vast amounts of location-based data,” and the agency has acquired iris scanning technology as well.

The bigger picture

These surveillance tools are being deployed as the Trump administration seeks to dramatically increase deportations to one million per year. But privacy advocates warn the implications extend far beyond immigration enforcement.

“Immigration powers are being used to justify mass surveillance of everybody,” says Emily Tucker, executive director of the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law. “The purpose of this is to build up a massive surveillance apparatus that can be used for whatever kind of policing the people in power decide that they want to undertake.”

A 2022 Georgetown Law report found that ICE could already locate three out of four U.S. adults through utility records and had scanned a third of adult Americans’ driver’s license photos. The current expansion represents a significant escalation of these capabilities.

Congressional pushback

Democratic senators led by Edward Markey of Massachusetts have called on ICE to stop using mobile facial recognition technology, citing concerns about privacy, civil liberties, and the chilling effect on public protests and free speech.

“Americans have a right to walk through public spaces without being surveilled,” Markey told NPR. “This type of on-demand surveillance is harrowing and it should put all of us on guard. It chills speech and erodes privacy. It ultimately undermines our democracy.”

ICE has not responded to questions from senators about the legal basis for these technologies, how they’re being used, or whether they’re being deployed against U.S. citizens and protesters. The agency’s only public statement has been that it uses technology “in support of investigations and law enforcement activities” while “respecting civil liberties and privacy interests.”

What comes next

The Department of Homeland Security has also published a proposed rule that would expand its ability to collect biometric data—including facial images, iris scans, fingerprints, voice prints, and even DNA—from non-citizens and their U.S. citizen relatives applying for immigration benefits. The public has until early January to comment on this rule.

As these technologies continue to expand with minimal oversight or transparency, the fundamental question remains: In the name of immigration enforcement, how much surveillance of everyone are we willing to accept?

Source: NPR – Immigration agents have new technology to identify and track people