As Immigration and Customs Enforcement is conducting raids across the country, the agency is working quickly to expand an online surveillance system that could potentially track millions of users across the Web. federal records exposed by lever The revelation that ICE is paying $5.7 million to use an AI-powered social media monitoring platform called Zignal Labs is what Will Owen, communications director for the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), calls an “attack” on democracy and free speech.
The “real-time intelligence” platform is capable of ingesting and analyzing vast amounts of publicly available data such as social media posts. According to its websiteIn A pamphlet shared by leverZignal Labs says it uses machine learning, computer vision, and optical character recognition to analyze more than 8 billion posts per day in more than 100 languages. This allows it to process and sort data into “curated detection feeds” that ICE can use to flag individuals for deportation.
The pamphlet highlights Zignal’s ability to capture geolocated images and video while providing alerts and information to “operators”. One example states that Zignal Labs used its technology to analyze a Telegram video showing “the exact location of the ongoing operation in Gaza.” The company says its tool identified the symbol and patch to “verify the operators involved”, allowing it to notify operators on the ground. This means ICE could potentially trace someone’s location based on the location associated with a video posted on TikTok or even a photo on Facebook.
ICE purchased it Agreement with Zignal Labs through CarahsoftA firm that deploys IT solutions for government agencies. Zignal Labs Most Recently partnered with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Analyzing weather events from public and online media sources. Accordingly, it also signed a contract with the US Secret Service in 2019 and works with the Department of Defense and the Department of Transportation. lever, The Verge We reached out to Zignal Labs with a request for more information about its contract with ICE, but did not immediately receive a response.
Surveillance on social media is not a new thing. In 2016, the American Civil Liberties Union discovered that police were using a CIA-backed tool called Geofeedia to track protesters of police brutality on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. But With billions of dollars of fundingICE has the budget to employ a range of social media surveillance tools that can lead to arrest and deportation across the country.
“With billions of dollars spent on spyware, it’s extremely worrying to think how far ICE will go in policing social media,” says Owen. “ICE is a lawless agency that will use AI-powered social media surveillance to not only terrorize immigrant families, but also target activists fighting against their abuses. This is an assault on our democracy and right to free speech, powered by algorithms and paid for with our tax dollars.”
“The scale of this espionage is matched by an equally massive chilling effect on free speech.”
earlier this month, a report from wired revealed ICE plans to hire about 30 employees to scour content on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
A document Viewed by wired Turns out ICE is requesting information from contractors who can help the agency carry out the initiative, which may also require workers to search data about targets’ family members, friends or coworkers in order to trace their whereabouts to ICE officers. The document says ICE will house about 12 contractors at a monitoring facility in Vermont, while 16 staff members will work in California, some of whom will have to be available “at all times.”
David Green, director of civil liberties at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, explains The Verge Automated and AI-powered monitoring tools will give the government “the ability to monitor social media for viewpoints it doesn’t like on a scale that was never possible with human review alone.” “The scale of this spying is matched by an equally massive chilling effect on free speech,” says Green.
Outside social media, 404 media reports that ICE has License plate-scanning security cameras tappedas well as gained access to a device Which tracks the movement of millions of phones.
Trump administration’s social media surveillance plans extend beyond ICE to deal with Citizenship and Immigration Services propose an initiative It would require people applying for US citizenship or individual residence to provide their social media account handles. In 2019, the State Department began requiring some visa applicants to list their social media handles on sites they had used within the previous year, but the agency expanded it. Add more types of nonimmigrant visas in June,
The US government has already started scouring social media for posts that do not match the Trump administration’s viewpoint. It started in March An AI-powered “Catch and Revoke” initiative To track posts by student visa holders that appear to be in support of Hamas or other designated terrorist organizations. State Department Also announced earlier this month It canceled the visas of six people who the US claimed had celebrated the shooting death of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk. This week, ICE arrested nine street vendors on Canal Street in New York City after a conservative influencer tagged ICE in a post showing vendors in the area.
But now, with a powerful AI social media monitoring tool in ICE’s hands, the agency won’t need influencers to flag individuals for deportation — and speaking freely on the Internet will only become riskier.
Sacha Howarth, executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, explains, “This is yet another example of Big Tech CEOs partnering with an increasingly authoritarian federal government as part of Trump’s ongoing efforts to crack down on free speech.” The Verge“This should horrify and anger every American.”
