ICE Using Repurposed Border Facial Recognition Tech To ID Protesters, Activists, And Migrants On US Streets

The Trump Administration’s constant escalation of its mass deportation programs now means ICE, CBP, and other federal agencies must come up with thousands of arrests a day. This never had anything to do with removing criminals from the country and, even if you once believed that might be the case, an unending string of raids by ICE has clearly demonstrated this is all about removing as many non-whites from the US as possible.

Keeping up with the administration’s body count demands means ICE has been forced to pull out all the stops. Fortunately for ICE, the administration is pitching in with the PULL ALL THE STOPS process, flooding the Los Angeles area with thousands of military troops and constantly expanding executive power to cover anything that might be challenged in court.

Everything is moving inland, which means the nation’s external borders no longer matter. Immigration via border crossings — both legal and illegal — has pretty much ground to a halt thanks to Trump’s antipathy towards (non-white) foreigners. That means all the action is now happening dozens, if not hundreds of miles from US borders.

And that action now includes the conversion of border crossing tech to field use, allowing ICE (and their federal partners) to bypass legal constraints that prevent government agents from demanding identification from any random person they happen to come across. Thanks to what is hopefully going to be a steady stream of government leaks, Joseph Cox and 404 Media are reporting/warning ICE is capable of identifying people even when those people aren’t legally obligated to show ID.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is using a new mobile phone app that can identify someone based on their fingerprints or face by simply pointing a smartphone camera at them, according to internal ICE emails viewed by 404 Media. The underlying system used for the facial recognition component of the app is ordinarily used when people enter or exit the U.S. Now, that system is being used inside the U.S. by ICE to identify people in the field. 

[…]

“The Mobile Fortify App empowers users with real-time biometric identity verification capabilities utilizing contactless fingerprints and facial images captured by the camera on an ICE issued cell phone without a secondary collection device,” one of the emails, which was sent to all Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) personnel and seen by 404 Media, reads. ERO is the section of ICE specifically focused on deporting people.

An activist warning others of ICE activity may have been subjected to this tech during an extremely sketchy stop by a bunch of pissed off, masked federal officers. The driver of the car had his face captured by no less than four different officers, as this recording shows.

Of course, it’s impossible to tell from this angle whether the officers were using the Mobile Fortify app or whether they were just going to run the driver’s face through other facial recognition tech once they got back to the office. But the emails seen by 404 Media make it clear ICE has literally mobilized the facial recognition system CBP and Border Patrol use at border crossings to identify people.

One is the Traveler Verification Service, which runs facial images against images already collected by the CBP. The other is a bit more vague, which suggests images captured by the mobile app might be run through any number of contracted services, which include Clearview’s facial recognition tech, which ICE is currently paying $3 million a year to utilize.

The second is the Seizure and Apprehension Workflow. This is what the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) describes as an “intelligence aggregator,” bringing together information related to searches and seizures. 

“The app uses CBP’s Traveler Verification Service and the Seizure and Apprehension Workflow that contains the biometric gallery of individuals for whom CBP maintains derogatory information for facial recognition,” the email reads. The exact definition of derogatory information in this context is not clear but 404 Media has previously reported on a database that ICE uses to find “derogatory” speech online. 

Both ICE and CBP refused to comment on the leaked email. And there’s no reason they would. To comment is to confirm the validity of the leak.

Even if you can ignore the inherent problems with facial recognition tech, especially when the source images are less than ideal, there’s no denying the nasty implications of this expansion of the border to cover anywhere ICE officers might be operating. Plenty of ICE raids have occurred hundreds of miles from the border. And even the CBP (Customs and Border Protection) is now wandering far inland to engage in operations that aren’t even remotely related to customs enforcement and/or border protection.

And, once again, the deployment of facial recognition tech against anyone ICE officers feel like aiming it at makes a mockery of legal protections US residents (legal or otherwise) are entitled to. The government is not allowed to just run around shouting “papers, please” to anyone they happen to encounter while doing its government work. A phone app that bypasses these protections is nothing more than an en masse rights violation, especially when government agents feel comfortable targeting people who are doing nothing more than simply existing where these agents are performing masked kidnappings and/or hassling people for performing the public duty of watching the watchers.