ICE biometrics underpin broader surveillance network, report argues

A coalition of privacy and civil liberties organizations says that biometric systems deployed by ICE and CBP have evolved from identity verification tools into part of a broader surveillance infrastructure. The report, The Tech Behind ICE: Oligarchs, Immigration Enforcement and the Threat to Democracy, by Mijente, Just Futures Law, and Surveillance Resistance Lab, argues that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is moving biometric and AI-driven enforcement beyond airports, ports of entry, and detention facilities into neighborhoods and immigration operations, putting privacy and civil rights at risk.

Its central argument is not about a single biometric system, but the linking of face images, fingerprints, iris scans, and DNA with wider government and commercial data networks used to identify, profile, and target people.

The report’s larger argument is that biometrics have become a gateway to a broader surveillance architecture. It says Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can connect biometric identifiers with immigration records, social media activity, location data, vehicle records, and commercial datasets.

A system built ostensibly to locate noncitizens can also reach family members, co-workers, journalists, protesters, legal observers, and others who encounter or document immigration enforcement, and has, the report warns.

The authors identify privacy, consent, accuracy, and accountability as their principal concerns. They say federal oversight agencies and civil rights groups have raised questions about privacy violations, improper sharing of photographs, and errors in facial recognition systems.

The report argues that facial recognition tools can reveal not only an identity in a public space, but also a person’s professional role, religious affiliation, family, and social relationships, political views, travel patterns, and home address, without consent, a warrant, or probable cause.

“Critical civil rights questions remain about the impact on civil, privacy, and consumer rights and the likelihood of errors within these programs,” the report says, noting that “there is no mechanism for the public to determine whether DHS unlawfully extracts sensitive information or biometrics, breaks privacy laws, produces systemic errors, or requires consent or a warrant.”

The report argues that DHS has scaled the technology faster than it has built public safeguards. It says DHS had identified 238 AI uses by 2025, more than half held by ICE and CBP, while more than 60 uses remained on an internal inventory not disclosed publicly, and cites documents showing facial recognition tools were conditionally approved despite questions about adequate testing.

The report describes the department’s approach as one of self-policing, with insufficient mechanisms to detect abuse, bias, discrimination, or privacy violations.

At the center of the report’s concerns is Mobile Fortify, the NEC-developed phone application used by ICE and CBP agents to capture a face image, fingerprints, and identity document photographs, which are sent to CBP-managed systems for comparison against hundreds of millions of biometric records.

DHS classified the system as a high-impact AI use case, according to the report.

The report argues that Mobile Fortify transforms biometric matching into a street-level identity tool, and that ICE officials have treated an app match as a definitive finding of citizenship status and could disregard evidence of U.S. citizenship, including a birth certificate, where the app indicates otherwise.

The report says the app was used more than 100,000 times during DHS’ controversial immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota, Chicago, and elsewhere, with collected data retained in DHS databases for 15 years.

It argues that people subjected to the process may not know the system was used, may not consent to the collection and may have no clear way to challenge what it calls AI evidence.

The report connects those concerns to reported uses against people monitoring enforcement activity, saying legal observers in Minnesota and Illinois reported being photographed along with their vehicles.

It also cites a Maine lawsuit alleging that DHS used Mobile Fortify and other surveillance capabilities to retaliate against and intimidate people filming ICE arrests.

In Chicago, the report says CBP agents photographed faces to verify citizenship, used the app on minors, and did not seek consent. It says DHS has not released a policy governing the tool despite congressional requests.

Clearview AI is presented as the report’s other major facial recognition concern. The report says Clearview has assembled a database it claims contains more than 70 billion photographs, including images scraped from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Venmo without consent.

It describes the database as allowing agencies to identify, locate, and track people, and notes that ICE received a contract worth up to $9.2 million in September 2025 while CBP received a separate $225,000 contract in February 2026.

The report characterizes that contracting trend as a deeper commitment to a technology that has generated privacy complaints, lawsuits, and regulatory findings abroad.

The report says DHS has more than 25 facial capture and facial recognition AI use cases, 22 of them held by ICE and CBP. Nearly half are associated with CBP’s Traveler Verification Service, which collects biometric information from people entering or leaving the United States by land, air and sea.

The report also highlights a fiscal 2027 request for $16 million in biometrics and identity management, $6 million for biometric emerging concepts, and $10 million for biometrics and identity screening. It calls particular attention to a proposed smart glasses prototype intended for biometric identification during immigration enforcement.

The report also describes RAVEn, an ICE analytics system that combines surveillance footage, biometric data, social media information, commercial location data, and license plate reader records.

Its facial-recognition function, the report says, can compare mugshots, surveillance images, and photographs from confiscated devices against driver license records and other government databases without notifying the people whose information is searched.

Iris recognition is another part of the expansion. The report says ICE awarded BI2 Technologies a $4.6 million contract in September 2025 for iris recognition in fixed facilities and field operations.

BI2’s systems capture more than 265 points from a person’s iris and can conduct real-time identification at distances of up to one meter. The report questions the sole source procurement and links the contract to the company’s lobbying campaign aimed at DHS.

For the report, the central issue is not simply whether an individual biometric tool functions as advertised. It argues that biometric systems are being deployed in an enforcement structure with little transparency about contracts, policies, data flows, accuracy testing, retention, or redress.

It calls for stronger consent requirements, limits on collection, retention and sharing, public disclosure of technology contracts, restrictions on biometric surveillance, and tighter limits on data exchanges between agencies and private companies.

Article Topics

biometric matching  |  biometrics  |  border security  |  CBP  |  DHS  |  facial recognition  |  ICE - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement  |  immigration  |  iris recognition  |  Mobile Fortify