ICE to Outsource Data Collection on 500,000 Immigrants

From Reveal News:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking for help from the private sector to gather and analyze a massive amount of data on 500,000 unauthorized immigrants a month – including their phone numbers, places of employment, insurance claims and payday loans.

The new system would help ICE track targets, described as “priority criminal aliens,” by funneling data from at least 17 sources into one system, according to a request published on a federal contracting website in early August. The “continuous monitoring and alert system” describedin ICE’s request would combine real-time information on jail bookings and FBI numbers with other records that a person generates in everyday life, including car registrations, credit history and wire transfers.

The system apparently would expand on and formalize a little-publicized data collection program that ICE began a year ago. Under President Donald Trump, the agency says it now requires a more robust tool for collecting data on its targets.

Experts on immigration policy and digital privacy told Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting that the request is an important signal of ICE’s plans to employ more advanced technology in its civil immigration enforcement. The request, they said, is notable for the breadth of the data sources pulled into the proposed system, the number of people ICE would keep under continuous surveillance and the fact that ICE plans to outsource the work.

“It’s what we’ve been fearing: that the government would be expanding its efforts to vacuum up data in order to monitor and find and deport undocumented immigrants,” said Adam Schwartz, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which advocates for digital privacy. Read more…

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