Understanding ICE Surveillance and its Civil Rights Implications
Recent operations of U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) have revealed an extensive web of surveillance technologies and databases of private information that ICE uses to track, arrest, and deport people. ICE contracts with private companies and collects information from other government agencies to amass tremendous quantities of sensitive data including locations and real-time movements, biometrics, and online behaviors. These tactics raise many civil rights concerns including Fourth Amendment violations; expanded powers of ICE and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS); and the federally unchecked ability for corporations to access and sell private data, including from government agencies. Congress should defund ICE's budget for surveillance technology, develop formal oversight of DHS's use of said technology, and ban data brokers from amassing and selling personal data. State governments should cease the use of mass surveillance systems and enact privacy protections.
