President Donald Trump made countering immigration one in all his flagship points throughout final 12 months’s presidential marketing campaign, promising an unprecedented variety of deportations. 

In his first eight months in workplace, that promise was 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, in keeping with CNN.  

ICE has taken middle stage in Trump’s mass deportation marketing campaign, raiding houses, workplaces, and public parks in the hunt 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 expertise that ICE has in its digital arsenal. 

Cell-site Simulators Units 

ICE has a expertise referred to as cell-site simulators to listen in on cellphones. These surveillance gadgets, because the identify suggests, are designed to seem as a cellphone tower, tricking close by telephones to connect with them. As soon as that occurs, the regulation 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 site visitors.  

Cell-site simulators are also referred to as “stingrays,” based mostly on the model identify of one of many earliest variations of the expertise, which was made by U.S. protection contractor Harris (now L3Harris); or IMSI catchers, a expertise that may seize a close-by cellular phone’s distinctive identifier which regulation enforcement can use for figuring out the cellphone’s proprietor.  

Within the final two years, ICE has signed contracts for greater than $1.5 million with an organization referred to as TechOps Specialty Automobiles (TOSV), which produces custom-made vans for regulation enforcement. 

A contract value greater than $800,000 dated Could 8, 2025 mentioned TOSV will present “Cell Website Simulator (CSS) Automobiles to assist the Homeland Safety Technical Operations program.”  

TOSV president Jon Brianas instructed TechCrunch that the corporate doesn’t manufacture the cell-site simulators, however slightly integrates them “into our general design of the car.” 

Cell-site simulators have lengthy been controversial for a number of causes.  

These gadgets are designed to trick all close by telephones to connect with them, which implies that by design they collect the info of many harmless folks. Additionally, authorities have generally deployed them with out first acquiring a warrant.  

Authorities have additionally tried to maintain their use of the expertise secret in courtroom, withholding info, and even accepting plea offers and dropping circumstances slightly than disclose details about their use of cell-site simulators. In a courtroom case in 2019 in Baltimore, it was revealed that prosecutors had been instructed to drop circumstances slightly than violate a non-disclosure settlement with the corporate that makes the gadgets.  

Clearview AI facial recognition

Clearview AI is maybe essentially the most well-known facial-recognition firm at present. For years, the corporate promised to have the ability to establish any face by looking by way of a big database of images it had scraped from the web. 

On Monday, 404 Media reported that ICE has signed a contract with the corporate to assist its regulation enforcement arm Homeland Safety Investigations (HSI), “with capabilities of figuring out victims and offenders in little one sexual exploitation circumstances and assaults towards regulation enforcement officers.” 

In line with a authorities procurement database, the contract signed final week is value $3.75 million. 

ICE has had different contracts with Clearview AI within the final couple of years. In September 2024, the company bought “forensic software program” from the corporate, a deal value $1.1 million. The 12 months 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 spyware and adware

In September 2024, ICE signed a contract value $2 million with Israeli spyware and adware maker Paragon Options. Nearly instantly, the Biden administration issued a “cease work order,” placing the contract underneath overview to ensure it complied with an government order on the federal government’s use of business spyware and adware. 

Due to that order, for almost a 12 months, the contract remained in limbo. Then, final week, the Trump administration lifted the cease work order, successfully reactivating the contract. 

At this level, the standing of Paragon’s relationship with ICE in apply is unclear.  

The data entry from final week mentioned that the contract with Paragon is for “a totally configured proprietary answer together with license, {hardware}, guarantee, upkeep, and coaching.” Virtually talking, until the {hardware} set up and coaching had been performed final 12 months, it could take a while for ICE to have Paragon’s system up and working.

It’s additionally unclear if the spyware and adware might be utilized by ICE or HSI, an company whose investigations usually are not restricted to immigration, but in addition cowl on-line little one sexual exploitation, human trafficking, monetary fraud, and extra.

Paragon has lengthy tried to painting itself as an “moral” and accountable spyware and adware maker, and now has to resolve if it’s moral to work with Trump’s ICE. Rather a lot has occurred to Paragon within the final 12 months. In December, American non-public fairness large AE Industrial bought Paragon, with a plan to merge it with cybersecurity firm RedLattice, in keeping with Israeli tech information web site 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 vp of selling 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 few months, Paragon has been ensnared in a spyware and adware scandal in Italy, the place the federal government has been accused of spying on journalists and immigration activists. In response, Paragon lower ties with Italy’s intelligence businesses. 

Cellphone hacking and unlocking expertise

In mid-September, ICE’s regulation 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 gadgets,” and “generate forensic studies,” in keeping with the contract description.

Magnet is the present maker of the cellphone hacking and unlocking gadgets referred to as Graykey. These gadgets basically give regulation enforcement brokers the power to attach a locked cellphone to them and unlock them and entry the info inside them. 

Magnet Forensics, which merged with Graykey makers Grayshift in 2023, didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Cellphone Location Information 

On the finish of September, 404 Media reported that ICE purchased entry to “an “all-in-one” surveillance instrument that enables the company to go looking by way of databases of historic cellphone location information, in addition to social media info.  

The instrument seems to be fabricated from two merchandise referred to as Tangles and Webloc, that are made by an organization referred to as Penlink. One of many instruments guarantees to leverage “a proprietary information platform to compile, course of, and validate billions of day by day location alerts from lots of of hundreds of thousands of cell gadgets, offering each forensic and predictive analytics,” in keeping with a redacted contract discovered 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 beforehand cited a case examine that mentioned Webloc can search a given location to “monitor traits of cell gadgets which have given information at these places and the way typically they’ve been there.”  

The sort of cellphone location information is harvested by firms world wide utilizing software program growth kits (SDKs) embedded in common smartphone apps, or with a web-based promoting course of referred to as real-time bidding (RTB) the place firms bid in real-time to position an advert on the display screen of a cellphone consumer based mostly on their demographic or location information. The latter course of has the by-product of giving advert tech firms that sort of private information.  

As soon as collected, this mass of location information is transferred to a knowledge dealer who then sells it to authorities businesses. Because of this layered course of, authorities have used such a 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 internet,” in keeping with Penlink’s official web 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 referred to as Accurint Digital Crime Middle. ICE used the instrument to examine the background info of migrants.   

A 12 months 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.”

In line with public data, LexisNexis at present gives ICE “with a regulation enforcement investigative database subscription (LEIDS) which permits entry to public data and industrial information to assist prison investigations.” 

This 12 months, ICE has paid $4.7 million to subscribe to the service. 

LexisNexis spokesperson Jennifer Richman instructed 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 rules, 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 businesses throughout the US to advance public security and safety.” 

Surveillance large Palantir

Information analytics and surveillance expertise large Palantir has signed a number of contracts with ICE within the final 12 months. The most important contract, value $18.5 million from September 2024, is for a database system referred to 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 12 months, 404 Media, which has reported extensively on the expertise powering Trump’s deportation efforts, and notably Palantir’s relationship with ICE, revealed particulars of how the ICM database works. The tech information web site reported that it noticed a current model of the database, which permits ICE to filter folks based mostly on their immigration standing, bodily traits, prison affiliation, location information, and extra. 

In line with 404 Media, “a supply conversant in the database” mentioned it’s made up of ‘tables upon tables’ of knowledge and that it could possibly construct studies 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 lots of of knowledge factors).” 

The instrument, and Palantir’s relationship with ICE, was controversial sufficient that sources inside the firm leaked to 404 Media an inner wiki the place Palantir justifies working with Trump’s ICE. 

Palantir can also be growing a instrument referred to as “ImmigrationOS,” in keeping with a contract value $30 million revealed by Enterprise Insider. 

ImmigrationOS is claimed to be designed to streamline the “choice and apprehension operations of unlawful aliens,” give “close to real-time visibility” into self-deportations, and monitor folks overstaying their visa, in keeping with a doc first reported on by Wired.

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 site information.