Google turned over a trove of personal data about a student and a journalist to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in response to a subpoena that was not authorized by a judge. according to a report by The Intercept.
The search and ad tech giant provided ICE with the usernames, physical addresses and a detailed list of services associated with the Google account of Amandla Thomas-Johnson, a British student and journalist who briefly attended a 2024 pro-Palestinian demonstration while attending Cornell University in New York.
Google also handed over Thomas-Johnson’s IP addresses, phone numbers, subscriber numbers and IDs, as well as the credit card and bank account numbers linked to his account.
The subpoena, which reportedly included a gag order, did not include a specific justification for why ICE was seeking Thomas-Johnson’s personal data, but the student said before that the demand for his data came within two hours of Cornell notifying him that the US government had revoked his student visa.
This is the latest example of how the US government is using a controversial type of legal request, called an administrative subpoena, to demand that tech companies hand over the personal data of people critical of the Trump administration. This includes anonymous Instagram accounts sharing information about ICE’s presence and raids, as well as people criticizing or protesting Trump and his policies.
ICE and Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Administrative subpoenas are issued directly by federal agencies without the intervention of a judge. These legal requirements cannot compel companies to hand over the contents of a person’s email accounts, web searches, or location data, but they can request metadata and other identifiable information, such as email addresses, in an effort to de-anonymize the owner of a particular online account.
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Unlike a court order, tech companies are under no obligation to provide someone’s data after receiving an administrative subpoena.
Last week, the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation sent a letter to Amazon, Apple, Discord, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Reddit, demanding that the companies stop giving data to the Department of Homeland Security, which houses ICE, in response to administrative subpoenas.
“Based on our own contact with targeted users, we are deeply concerned that your companies are failing to challenge illegal surveillance and defend users’ privacy and speech.” read the letter.
“We urge companies that receive such subpoenas to insist that DHS seek confirmation from a court that their requests are not illegal or unconstitutional before the companies disclose user information. We also urge you to notify users of requests for their information with a reasonable amount of time to challenge the subpoenas themselves,” it says.
Thomas-Johnson told The Intercept that “we have to think very hard about what resistance looks like under these circumstances … where the government and Big Tech know so much about us, they can track us, imprison us, destroy us in various ways.”
