ICE TO BUY TOOL THAT TRACKS LOCATIONS OF HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF PHONES EVERY DAY
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has bought access to a surveillance tool that is updated every day with billions of pieces of location data from hundreds of millions of mobile phones, according to ICE documents reviewed by 404 Media.
The documents explicitly show that ICE is choosing this product over others offered by the contractor’s competitors because it gives ICE essentially an “all-in-one” tool for searching both masses of location data and information taken from social media. The documents also show that ICE is planning to once again use location data remotely harvested from peoples’ smartphones after previously saying it had stopped the practice.
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Surveillance contractors around the world create massive datasets of phones’, and by extension people’s movements, and then sell access to the data to government agencies. In turn, U.S. agencies have used these tools without a warrant or court order.
“The Biden Administration shut down DHS’s location data purchases after an inspector general found that DHS had broken the law. Every American should be concerned that Trump's hand-picked security force is once again buying and using location data without a warrant,” Senator Ron Wyden told 404 Media in a statement.
NOW FOR THE SECOND SHOE TO DROP!
The Federal Agencies including ICE, FBI, and others are purchasing detailed airline passenger data that extends well beyond basic metadata (such as flight numbers or timestamps) and enables precise tracking of individuals' movements, identities, and financial habits. This data is acquired through commercial intermediaries like the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), a data broker owned by major U.S. airlines (e.g., American, United, Delta), which processes ticket sales from travel agencies like Expedia. The information is fed into government systems such as the secretive Travel Intelligence Program (TIP), allowing warrantless searches and surveillance.
Key Details on the Data and Its Capabilities
- Content of the Data: It includes full passenger name records (PNRs), complete flight itineraries (past and future domestic/international travel), financial details (e.g., payment methods, credit card info), and contact information. This goes far beyond metadata like "who flew where at what time" to reveal personal patterns, such as repeated trips to specific locations or associations via shared bookings.
- Tracking Potential: Agencies can query the database (holding over 1 billion records, updated daily) by name, partial credit card numbers, or travel agencies to reconstruct an individual's travel history across years. For example, ICE and CBP use it to locate "persons of interest" in investigations, sharing results with state/local law enforcement and other federal entities like the FBI. This creates a de facto surveillance tool for monitoring U.S. and non-U.S. persons without judicial oversight.
- Scope and Agencies Involved:
- ICE and CBP (DHS): Primary buyers since at least June 2024, with contracts through 2029 valued at around $11,000–$776,000 annually. Used for immigration enforcement, employee misconduct probes, and broader tracking.
- FBI: Explicitly named in reports as accessing or purchasing similar records for domestic investigations, bypassing warrants by buying from brokers rather than compelling airlines directly.
- Others: Includes DEA, Secret Service, TSA, SEC, Air Force, and potentially more via shared access. Procurement records show billions of records sold for surveillance purposes.
- Limitations: Data covers ~54% of global flights but excludes tickets bought directly from airlines (only third-party agency bookings). Still, this captures a massive volume, enabling probabilistic tracking of most travelers.
Privacy and Legal Concerns
Civil liberties groups like the EFF and ACLU (though the latter has focused more on cell phone data purchases) argue this erodes Fourth Amendment protections, as agencies exploit loopholes to avoid warrants required for direct data seizure. There's no opt-out for affected users, and contracts prohibit agencies from disclosing ARC as the source unless court-ordered, reducing transparency. Critics warn of misuse, especially amid heightened immigration enforcement, potentially targeting communities based on ethnicity, religion, or politics.
To minimize exposure, privacy advocates recommend buying tickets directly from airlines and supporting reforms like the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act, which would require court orders for such purchases.
