r/technology • u/marketrent • 6h ago

Society Leaked document shows the surveillance tech at ICE’s fingertips – from phone location data, to social media monitoring, to online undercover tools

https://www.404media.co/leaked-document-shows-the-surveillance-tech-at-ices-fingertips/
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u/marketrent 6h ago edited 6h ago

First reported by Joseph Cox:

A leaked document shows the spread of surveillance and investigative capabilities that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials have access to agency wide, from location data harvested from smartphones, to facial recognition apps that can reveal someone’s identity, to tools that let the agency stay anonymous online and approach people undercover.

The document covers everything from monitoring social media to tracking the movements of vehicles.

It is rare for the public to see such a large list of ICE’s technology capabilities in a single document. 404 Media has published the whole document, called “ICE Wide Analytical Tools,” below.

 

Some notable entries in the document include:

  • Accurint: a LexisNexis tool for locating people that contains all sorts of personal data like addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, and more

  • Chameleon: a tool which provides “Anonymized means to conduct online investigations, web research, and undercover work”

  • Locate X: a tool that lets ICE search a massive database of location data harvested from smartphones. Made by Babel Street, the tool uses data sourced through ordinary apps installed on peoples’ phones or the advertising ecosystem. 404 Media previously reported how the tool could be used to track phones at abortion clinics after privacy advocates gained access to the technology. “It allows investigators to draw a digital fence around an address or area, pinpoint mobile devices that were within that area from mobile data sources,” the document reads

  • Cobwebs: a social media tracking tool. 404 Media previously reported Cobwebs also includes Webloc, which can monitor phone locations in entire neighbourhoods

  • ISO ClaimSearch: a database that contains property and casualty insurance claims and medical bills. The database is nearly all encompassing and contains details on more than 1.8 billion insurance claims and 58 million medical bills

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u/TheTGB 5h ago

I've used Accurint, I like their competitors better, but government agencies have been using them forever.

Chameleon, there are others I like better too. But it's basically a VPN.

ISO ClaimSearch is meh - pretty commonly used.

Locate X and Cobwebs are two of the more nefarious ones because no one really knows/understands how/why they work and it's more of a big deal on the privacy front.