President Donald Trump made countering immigration considered one of 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, or ICE (round 200,000), Customs and Border Safety (greater than 132,000), and nearly 18,000 self-deportations, according to CNN.
ICE has taken middle stage in Trump’s mass deportation marketing campaign, raiding properties, workplaces, and public parks looking for undocumented immigrants. To help its efforts, 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.
Cell-site Simulators Gadgets
ICE has a know-how often known as cell-site simulators to eavesdrop on cellphones. These surveillance units, because the identify suggests, are designed to look as a cellphone tower, tricking close by telephones to hook up with them. As soon as that occurs, the legislation enforcement authorities who’re utilizing the cell-site simulators can find and establish the telephones of their neighborhood, and probably intercept calls, textual content messages, and web visitors.
Cell-site simulators are also referred to as “stingrays,” primarily based on the model identify of one of many earliest variations of the know-how, which was made by U.S. protection contractor Harris (now L3Harris); or IMSI catchers, a know-how that may seize a close-by cellphone’s distinctive identifier which legislation enforcement can use for figuring out the cellphone’s proprietor.
Within the final two years, ICE has signed contracts for more than $1.5 million with a company called TechOps Specialty Vehicles (TOSV), which produces custom-made vans for legislation enforcement.
A contract price greater than $800,000 dated Might 8, 2025 mentioned TOSV will present “Cell Website Simulator (CSS) Automobiles to assist the Homeland Safety Technical Operations program.”
TOSV president Jon Brianas advised TechCrunch that the corporate doesn’t manufacture the cell-site simulators, however quite integrates them “into our general design of the automobile.”
Cell-site simulators have lengthy been controversial for a number of causes.
These units are designed to trick all close by telephones to hook up with them, which signifies that by design they collect the info of many harmless individuals. Additionally, authorities have sometimes deployed them with out first acquiring a warrant.
Authorities have additionally tried to maintain their use of the know-how secret in court docket, withholding information, and even accepting plea deals and dropping cases quite than disclose details about their use of cell-site simulators. In a court docket case in 2019 in Baltimore, it was revealed that prosecutors had been instructed to drop instances quite than violate a non-disclosure settlement with the corporate that makes the units.
Clearview AI facial recognition
Clearview AI is probably essentially the most well-known facial-recognition firm at this time. For years, the corporate promised to have the ability to establish any face by looking out via a big database of photographs 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 towards legislation enforcement officers.”
Based on a authorities procurement database, the contract signed final week is price $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 price $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.
Paragon cellphone adware
Contact Us
Do you have 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 machine, you’ll be able to contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Sign at +1 917 257 1382, or by way of Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or email. You can also contact TechCrunch by way of SecureDrop.
In September 2024, ICE signed a contract price $2 million with Israeli adware maker Paragon Options. Nearly 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 adware.
Due to that order, for almost a yr, the contract remained in limbo. Then, final week, the Trump administration lifted the cease work order, effectively reactivating the contract.
At this level, the standing of Paragon’s relationship with ICE in observe is unclear.
The data entry from final week mentioned that the contract with Paragon is for “a totally configured proprietary resolution together with license, {hardware}, guarantee, upkeep, and coaching.” Virtually talking, until the {hardware} set up and coaching had been performed final yr, it could take a while for ICE to have Paragon’s system up and operating.
It’s additionally unclear if the adware will likely be utilized by ICE or HSI, an company whose investigations usually are not restricted to immigration, but additionally cowl on-line youngster sexual exploitation, human trafficking, monetary fraud, and more.
Paragon has lengthy tried to painting itself as an “moral” and accountable adware maker, and now has to determine if it’s moral to work with Trump’s ICE. Rather a lot has occurred to Paragon within the final yr. In December, American private equity giant AE Industrial purchased Paragon, with a plan to merge it with cybersecurity firm RedLattice, in response to Israeli tech information website Calcalist.
In an indication that the merger could have taken place, when TechCrunch reached out to Paragon for touch upon the reactivation of the ICE contract final week, we had 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 adware scandal in Italy, the place the federal government has been accused of spying on journalists and immigration activists. In response, Paragon cut ties with Italy’s intelligence companies.
Telephone hacking and unlocking know-how
In mid-September, ICE’s legislation enforcement arm Homeland Safety Investigations signed a contract with Magnet Forensics for $3 million.
This contract is particularly for software program licenses in order that HSI brokers can “get well digital proof, course of a number of units,” and “generate forensic stories,” in response to the contract description.
Magnet is the present maker of the cellphone hacking and unlocking units often known as Graykey. These units primarily give legislation enforcement brokers the flexibility to attach a locked cellphone to them and unlock them and entry the info within them.
Magnet Forensics, which merged with Graykey makers Grayshift in 2023, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Cellphone Location Knowledge
On the finish of September, 404 Media reported that ICE purchased entry to “an “all-in-one” surveillance instrument that enables the company to look via databases of historic cellphone location information, in addition to social media info.
The instrument seems to be product of two merchandise known as Tangles and Webloc, that are made by an organization known as Penlink. One of many instruments guarantees to leverage “a proprietary information platform to compile, course of, and validate billions of every day location indicators from a whole bunch of tens of millions of cell units, offering each forensic and predictive analytics,” according to a redacted contract found by 404 Media.
The redacted contract doesn’t establish which one of many instruments makes that promise, however given its description, it’s doubtless Webloc. Forbes previously cited a case study that mentioned Webloc can search a given location to “monitor developments of cell units which have given information at these places and the way typically they’ve been there.”
This sort of cellphone location information is harvested by corporations around the globe utilizing software program growth kits (SDKs) embedded in common smartphone apps, or with an internet promoting course of known as real-time bidding (RTB) the place corporations bid in real-time to put an advert on the display screen of a cellphone person primarily based on their demographic or location information. The latter course of has the by-product of giving advert tech corporations that form of private information.
As soon as collected, this mass of location information is transferred to a knowledge dealer who then sells it to authorities companies. Due to this layered course of, authorities have used the sort of information with out getting a warrant by merely buying entry to the info.
The opposite instrument, Tangles, is an “AI-powered open-source intelligence” instrument that automates “the search and evaluation of knowledge from the open, deep, and the darkish net,” according to Penlink’s official site.
Forbes reported in September that ICE spent $5 million on Penlink’s two instruments.
Penlink didn’t reply to a request for remark.
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 Info Act requests, which revealed that ICE carried out greater than 1.2 million searches over seven months utilizing a instrument known as Accurint Digital Crime Heart. ICE used the instrument to test 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 presently offers ICE “with a legislation enforcement investigative database subscription (LEIDS) which permits entry to public data and industrial information to assist felony investigations.”
This yr, ICE has paid $4.7 million to subscribe to the service.
LexisNexis spokesperson Jennifer Richman advised 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 laws, and for the safety of all residents of the US,” mentioned Richman, who added that LexisNexis “companions with greater than 7,500 federal, state, native, tribal, and territorial companies throughout the US 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 most important contract, price $18.5 million from September 2024, is for a database system known as “Investigative Case Administration,” or ICM.
The contract for ICM goes again to 2022, when Palantir signed a $95.9 million cope with ICE. 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 website reported that it noticed a current model of the database, which permits ICE to filter individuals primarily based on their immigration standing, bodily traits, felony affiliation, location information, and extra.
Based on 404 Media, “a supply aware of the database” mentioned it’s made up of ‘tables upon tables’ of knowledge and that it may construct stories that present, for instance, people who find themselves on a particular kind of visa who got here into the nation at a particular port of entry, who got here from a particular nation, and who’ve a particular hair coloration (or any variety of a whole bunch of knowledge factors).”
The instrument, and Palantir’s relationship with ICE, was controversial sufficient that sources inside the firm leaked to 404 Media an internal wiki the place Palantir justifies working with Trump’s ICE.
Palantir can also be creating a instrument known as “ImmigrationOS,” in response to a contract price $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 observe individuals overstaying their visa, in response to a document first reported on by Wired.
First printed on September 13 and up to date on September 18 to incorporate Magnet Forensics’ new contract, and once more on October 8 to incorporate cell-site simulators and site information.
