President Donald Trump made countering immigration one in all his flagship problems throughout ultimate yr’s presidential marketing campaign, promising an unheard of collection of deportations.
In his first 8 months in administrative center, that promise become round 350,000 deportations, a determine that comes with deportations by way of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE (round 200,000), Customs and Border Coverage (greater than 132,000), and nearly 18,000 self-deportations, in step with CNN.
ICE has taken middle level in Trump’s mass deportation marketing campaign, raiding properties, places of work, and public parks looking for undocumented immigrants. To assist its efforts, ICE has at its disposal a number of applied sciences in a position to figuring out and surveilling folks and communities.
Here’s a recap of one of the most generation that ICE has in its virtual arsenal.
Cellular-site Simulators Units
ICE has a generation referred to as cell-site simulators to eavesdrop on mobile phones. Those surveillance gadgets, because the identify suggests, are designed to seem as a cell phone tower, tricking within sight telephones to connect with them. As soon as that occurs, the legislation enforcement government who’re the usage of the cell-site simulators can find and establish the telephones of their neighborhood, and probably intercept calls, textual content messages, and web visitors.
Cellular-site simulators are sometimes called “stingrays,” in keeping with the emblem identify of one of the most earliest variations of the generation, which was once made by way of U.S. protection contractor Harris (now L3Harris); or IMSI catchers, a generation that may seize a close-by mobile phone’s distinctive identifier which legislation enforcement can use for figuring out the telephone’s proprietor.
Within the ultimate two years, ICE has signed contracts for greater than $1.5 million with an organization known as TechOps Area of expertise Automobiles (TOSV), which produces custom designed vehicles for legislation enforcement.
A freelance price greater than $800,000 dated Might 8, 2025 stated TOSV will supply “Cellular Web site Simulator (CSS) Automobiles to enhance the Place of birth Safety Technical Operations program.”
TOSV president Jon Brianas instructed TechCrunch that the corporate does no longer manufacture the cell-site simulators, however slightly integrates “into our general design of the automobile.”
Cellular-site simulators have lengthy been debatable for a number of causes.
Those gadgets are designed to trick all within sight telephones to connect with them, this means that that by way of design they collect the information of many blameless other people. Additionally, government have occasionally deployed them with out first acquiring a warrant.
Government have additionally attempted to stay their use of the generation secret in court docket, withholding data, or even accepting plea offers and shedding circumstances slightly than divulge details about their use of cell-site simulators. In a court docket case in 2019 in Baltimore, it was once printed that prosecutors have been recommended to drop circumstances slightly than violate a non-disclosure settlement with the corporate that makes the gadgets.
Clearview AI facial popularity
Clearview AI is possibly probably the most well known facial-recognition corporate as of late. For years, the corporate promised with the intention to establish any face by way of looking thru a big database of pictures it had scraped from the web.
On Monday, 404 Media reported that ICE has signed a freelance with the corporate to enhance its legislation enforcement arm Place of birth Safety Investigations (HSI), “with functions of figuring out sufferers and offenders in kid sexual exploitation circumstances and attacks in opposition to legislation enforcement officials.”
In step with a central authority procurement database, the contract signed ultimate week is price $3.75 million.
ICE has had different contracts with Clearview AI within the ultimate couple of years. In September 2024, the company bought “forensic tool” from the corporate, a deal price $1.1 million. The yr sooner than, ICE paid Clearview AI just about $800,000 for “facial popularity endeavor licenses.”
Clearview AI didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Paragon telephone spy ware
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Do you may have extra details about ICE and the generation it makes use of? We would like to be informed how this impacts you. From a non-work tool, you’ll be able to touch Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Sign at +1 917 257 1382, or by the use of Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or e-mail. You can also touch TechCrunch by the use of SecureDrop.
In September 2024, ICE signed a freelance price $2 million with Israeli spy ware maker Paragon Answers. Virtually right away, the Biden management issued a “prevent paintings order,” hanging the contract beneath evaluation to verify it complied with an government order at the executive’s use of business spy ware.
On account of that order, for almost a yr, the contract remained in limbo. Then, ultimate week, the Trump management lifted the prevent paintings order, successfully reactivating the contract.
At this level, the standing of Paragon’s dating with ICE in apply is unclear.
The data access from ultimate week stated that the contract with Paragon is for “a completely configured proprietary resolution together with license, {hardware}, guaranty, upkeep, and coaching.” Nearly talking, until the {hardware} set up and coaching have been performed ultimate yr, it’s going to take a while for ICE to have Paragon’s machine up and working.
It’s additionally unclear if the spy ware shall be utilized by ICE or HSI, an company whose investigations don’t seem to be restricted to immigration, but in addition duvet on-line kid sexual exploitation, human trafficking, monetary fraud, and extra.
Paragon has lengthy attempted to painting itself as an “moral” and accountable spy ware maker, and now has to make a decision if it’s moral to paintings with Trump’s ICE. So much has came about to Paragon within the ultimate yr. In December, American non-public fairness large AE Commercial bought Paragon, with a plan to merge it with cybersecurity corporate RedLattice, in step with Israeli tech information web site Calcalist.
In an indication that the merger will have taken position, when TechCrunch reached out to Paragon for remark at the reactivation of the ICE contract ultimate week, we have been referred to RedLattice’s new vp of promoting and communications Jennifer Iras.
RedLattice’s Iras didn’t reply to a request for remark for this newsletter, nor for ultimate week’s article.
In the previous couple of months, Paragon has been ensnared in a spy ware scandal in Italy, the place the federal government has been accused of spying on newshounds and immigration activists. In reaction, Paragon minimize ties with Italy’s intelligence companies.
Telephone hacking and unlocking generation
In mid-September, ICE’s legislation enforcement arm Place of birth Safety Investigations signed a freelance with Magnet Forensics for $3 million.
This contract is particularly for tool licenses in order that HSI brokers can “recuperate virtual proof, procedure a couple of gadgets,” and “generate forensic studies,” in step with the contract description.
Magnet is the present maker of the telephone hacking and unlocking gadgets referred to as Graykey. Those gadgets necessarily give legislation enforcement brokers the facility to attach a locked telephone to them and release them and get admission to the information within them.
Magnet Forensics, which merged with Graykey makers Grayshift in 2023, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Cellular phone Location Knowledge
On the finish of September, 404 Media reported that ICE purchased get admission to to “an “all-in-one” surveillance software that permits the company to look thru databases of ancient cell phone location information, in addition to social media data.
The software seems to be made of 2 merchandise known as Tangles and Webloc, that are made by way of an organization known as Penlink. Probably the most equipment guarantees to leverage “a proprietary information platform to collect, procedure, and validate billions of day-to-day location alerts from masses of tens of millions of cellular gadgets, offering each forensic and predictive analytics,” in step with a redacted contract discovered by way of 404 Media.
The redacted contract does no longer establish which one of the most equipment makes that promise, however given its description, it’s most probably Webloc. Forbes up to now cited a case find out about that stated Webloc can seek a given location to “track developments of cellular gadgets that experience given information at the ones places and the way steadily they’ve been there.”
This sort of cell phone location information is harvested by way of firms world wide the usage of tool building kits (SDKs) embedded in common smartphone apps, or with a web based promoting procedure known as real-time bidding (RTB) the place firms bid in real-time to put an advert at the display screen of a cell phone person in keeping with their demographic or location information. The latter procedure has the derivative of giving advert tech firms that more or less non-public information.
As soon as gathered, this mass of location information is transferred to an information dealer who then sells it to executive companies. Due to this layered procedure, government have used this kind of information with out getting a warrant by way of merely buying get admission to to the information.
The opposite software, Tangles, is an “AI-powered open-source intelligence” software that automates “the quest and research of knowledge from the open, deep, and the darkish internet,” in step with Penlink’s professional web site.
Forbes reported in September that ICE spent $5 million on Penlink’s two equipment.
Penlink didn’t reply to a request for remark.
LexisNexis’ criminal and public data databases
For years, ICE has used the criminal analysis and public data information dealer LexisNexis to enhance its investigations.
In 2022, two non-profits acquired paperwork by the use of Freedom of Data Act requests, which printed that ICE carried out greater than 1.2 million searches over seven months the usage of a device known as Accurint Digital Crime Heart. ICE used the software to test the background data of migrants.
A yr later, The Intercept printed that ICE was once the usage of LexisNexis to hit upon suspicious process and examine migrants sooner than they even dedicated a criminal offense, a program {that a} critic stated enabled “mass surveillance.”
In step with public data, LexisNexis recently supplies ICE “with a legislation enforcement investigative database subscription (LEIDS) which permits get admission to to public data and industrial information to enhance prison investigations.”
This yr, ICE has paid $4.7 million to subscribe to the provider.
LexisNexis spokesperson Jennifer Richman instructed TechCrunch that ICE has used the corporate’s product “information and analytics answers for many years, throughout a number of administrations.”
“Our dedication is to enhance the accountable and moral use of knowledge, in complete compliance with regulations and laws, and for the security of all citizens of america,” stated Richman, who added that LexisNexis “companions with greater than 7,500 federal, state, native, tribal, and territorial companies throughout america to advance public security and safety.”
Surveillance large Palantir
Knowledge analytics and surveillance generation large Palantir has signed a number of contracts with ICE within the ultimate yr. The largest contract, price $18.5 million from September 2024, is for a database machine known as “Investigative Case Control,” or ICM.
The contract for ICM is going again to 2022, when Palantir signed a $95.9 million care for ICE. The Peter Thiel-founded corporate’s dating with ICE dates again to the early 2010s.
Previous this yr, 404 Media, which has reported broadly at the generation powering Trump’s deportation efforts, and specifically Palantir’s dating with ICE, printed main points of ways the ICM database works. The tech information web site reported that it noticed a up to date model of the database, which permits ICE to clear out other people in keeping with their immigration standing, bodily traits, prison association, location information, and extra.
In step with 404 Media, “a supply aware of the database” stated it’s made up of ‘tables upon tables’ of knowledge and that it may well construct studies that display, for instance, people who find themselves on a selected form of visa who got here into the rustic at a selected port of access, who got here from a selected nation, and who’ve a selected hair colour (or any collection of masses of knowledge issues).”
The software, and Palantir’s dating with ICE, was once debatable sufficient that resources inside the corporate leaked to 404 Media an inner wiki the place Palantir justifies operating with Trump’s ICE.
Palantir could also be creating a device known as “ImmigrationOS,” in step with a freelance price $30 million printed by way of Trade Insider.
ImmigrationOS is claimed to be designed to streamline the “variety and apprehension operations of unlawful extraterrestrial beings,” give “close to real-time visibility” into self-deportations, and monitor other people overstaying their visa, in step with a file first reported on by way of Stressed out.
First revealed 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 placement information.
