President Donald Trump has made migration one of the issues of his flagship during last year’s presidential campaign, promising an unprecedented number of deportations.
During its first eight months, this promise was converted into about 350,000 deportations, an image involving expansions with migration and customs or ice (approximately 200,000), Customs and Border Protection (over 132,000) and nearly 18,000 self-discretion, According to CNN.
Ice has taken the focus of Trump’s mass expulsion campaign, houses, workplaces and public parks in search of paper -free immigrants. To help his efforts, Ice has several technologies capable of identifying and referring individuals and communities.
Here is a review of some of the technology that ICE has in its digital arsenal.
ClearView AI face recognition
Clearview AI is probably the most well -known face recognition company today. For years, the company has promised to be able to locate any person in search of a large database of photos of the internet scratching.
Monday, Reported 404 media That Ice has signed a contract with the company to support investigations into the homeland of law enforcement (HSI), “with the possibilities of detecting victims and offenders in child sexual exploitation cases and attacks on law enforcement officers”.
According to a state procurement database, the contract signed last week is worth $ 3.75 million.
ICE had other contracts with ClearView AI over the past two years. In September 2024, the organization bought the company “Forensic Software”, a $ 1.1 million deal. Last year, ICE paid ClearView AI for almost $ 800,000 for “Face Identification Business Licenses”.
Clearview AI did not respond to a commentary request.
Paragon Phone Spyware
Contact us
Do you have more information about the Ice and technology it uses? We would like to know how this affects you. From a non-work device, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-bicchierai safely on the signal on +1 917 257 1382, or via the telegraph and keybase @lorenzofb or email. You can also contact TechCrunch via securedrop.
In September 2024, ice A contract was signed worth $ 2 million with Israeli Spyware Maker Paragon Solutions. Almost immediately, Biden’s administration issued a “work order”, By putting the contract under consideration To make sure it has complied with an executive order on the use of commercial spyware by the government.
Because of this order, for almost a year, the contract remained in a vacuum. Last week, Trump’s administration raised the work order, effectively reactivating the contract.
At this point, the state of Paragon’s relationship with Ice in practice is unclear.
Last week’s registration stated that the contract with Paragon is for “a fully formed privately owned solution, including license, material, warranty, maintenance and training”. In practice, unless the installation and material training took place last year, it may take some time for the Paragon system to operate.
It is also not unclear whether spyware will be used by Ice or HSI, an organization whose research is not limited to immigration, but also cover children’s sexual exploitation, people’s trading, financial fraud, and more.
Paragon has long tried to portray himself as a “moral” and manufacturer of Spyware, and now he has to decide whether he is moral to work with Trump’s ice. Much has happened in Paragon last year. In December, the US private stock giant AE Industrial bought Paragon, with a plan to merge with Cybersecurity Redlattice, according to the Israeli site Tech News Cosmetic.
In a sign that the merger may have taken place when TechCrunch arrived in Paragon to comment on the reactivation of the ice contract last week, they reported to the new Vice President of Redlattice for Marketing and Jennifer Iras’ communications.
Redlattice’s IRA did not respond to comments for this article, nor for last week’s article.
In recent months, Paragon has undergone a spyware scandal in Italy, where the government has been accused of spying on reporters and immigration activists. In response, Paragon cuts his links to Italy’s intelligence services.
Hacking technology and phone unlocking
In mid -September, investigations into the law on the enforcement of the ICE law signed a contract with Magnet Forensics for $ 3 million.
This contract is specifically for software licenses, so that HSI agents can “recover digital data, process multiple devices” and “create forensic reports”, according to the contract description.
Magnet is the current manufacturer of telephone piracy and unlock devices known as Graykey. These devices essentially give law enforcement agents the ability to connect a locked phone to them and unlock them and access the data inside them.
Magnetic forensic experts, who merged with manufacturers Graykey Grayshift in 2023, did not respond to request for comments.
Lexisnexis Legal and Public Databases
For years, Ice has used the legal research and public records of Data Broker Lexisnexis to support his research.
In 2022, two non -profit documents received documents through applications for freedom of information, which revealed that Ice had made over 1.2 million searches for seven months using a tool called Accurint Virtual Crime Center. Ice used the tool to check the background information of immigrants.
A year later, Revealed the follow -up This ice used Lexisnexis to detect suspicious activity and investigate immigrants before they even committed a crime, a program that a critic said allowed “mass surveillance”.
According to public recordsLexisnexis is currently providing ICE “with Law enforcement database, which allows access to public records and commercial data to support criminal investigations”.
This year, Ice has paid $ 4.7 million to register with the service.
Lexisnexis spokesman Jennifer Richman told TechCrunch that Ice used the product “Data and Analytics Solutions for decades, in various administrations”.
“Our commitment is to support the responsible and moral use of data, in full compliance with laws and regulations and to protect all United States,” said Richman, who added that Lexisnexis “works with more than 7,500, Public Security and Security ”.
Watching giant
Data Analyzes and Tracking Technology The Palantir Giant has signed several contracts with ice in the last year. The largest contract, worth $ 18.5 million since September 2024, is for a database system called “investigation of management cases” or ICM.
The contract for ICM goes back to 2022, when Palantir undersigned An agreement of $ 95.9 million with Ice. Peter Thiel’s relationship with ICE dates back to early 2010.
Earlier this year, 404 media, which extensively reported technology that feeds Trump’s expulsion efforts and in detail Paladir relationship with ICEreveal details on how the ICM database works. The Tech News website said it saw a recent version of the database, which allows ICE to filter people under the immigration status, physical characteristics, criminal relationships, location data and much more.
According to 404 media, “a source familiar with the database” said it consists of “tables in data” of the data and that it can create reports that show, for example, people who are in a specific type of visa who came to the country at a particular port port, which came from a particular country or a particular color. ”
Palantir’s tool and relationship with Ice were controversial enough for the sources within the company leaks in 404 media an internal wiki Where Palantir justifies work with Trump’s ice.
Palantir also develops a tool called “migration”, according to a $ 30 million contract revealed by Business Insider.
Immigration are said to be planned to smooth out the “choices and concern functions of illegal foreigners”, give “almost real -time visibility” to confidence and monitor people who go beyond their visa, according to A, according to a. document first reported by wired.
It was first published on September 13 and was informed on September 18 to include the new Magnet Forensics contract.
