ICE To Pay Up To $10 Million For Clearview Facial Recognition To Investigate Agent Assaults

In a move that has sparked widespread concern, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has agreed to pay up to $10 million for the use of a controversial facial recognition technology developed by Clearview AI. The deal comes as ICE ramps up its efforts to locate and deport undocumented immigrants, leading to increased tensions with protesters and, on occasion, attacks on ICE agents.

Clearview AI's facial recognition technology uses advanced algorithms to compare images of individuals to a massive database of face images scraped from social media and other public websites. The company has been at the center of several high-profile controversies over its data collection practices, including fines of over $50 million by regulators in both the UK and Europe for breaching privacy rules.

ICE has used Clearview AI in child exploitation investigations since 2018, but the new contract marks a significant expansion of its use. According to a public contract record identified by Forbes, ICE purchased the technology this month to support Homeland Security Investigations with "capabilities of identifying victims and offenders in child sexual exploitation cases and assaults against law enforcement officers."

"The technology will quickly become a part of President Trump's war on undocumented families," said Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. "At a moment when the government is charging protesters who throw food with felony assault, it's clear that this tech will just become another way to silence dissent."

Cahn's comments echo concerns raised by civil liberties groups and advocates for human rights, who argue that facial recognition technology can be used to suppress dissenting voices and target marginalized communities. "No matter what ICE claims today, I have no doubt the technology will quickly become a part of President Trump's war on undocumented families," Cahn said.

Clearview AI has faced significant scrutiny in recent years, including calls for boycotts and protests from critics who argue that its business model is built on exploiting people's personal data without consent. The company's founder, Hoan Ton-That, was removed from the board earlier this year after it emerged that the company was struggling to secure federal contracts or attract new funding.

In addition to Clearview AI, ICE has an arsenal of other surveillance tools at its disposal, including a facial recognition system called Mobile Fortify and mobile spyware from Israeli-founded company Paragone Solutions. The agency has also purchased wiretapping systems from Pen-Link and phone forensics tools from Cellebrite and rival Magnet, known as Graykey.

Contracting records show that ICE has made significant purchases of Graykey in recent weeks, with nearly $150,000 worth of orders placed in the last three weeks alone. The deals come as part of a larger trend of law enforcement agencies across the US expanding their use of surveillance technology to combat immigration and national security threats.