ICE Expands Facial Recognition Efforts with Mobile Fortify App

Immigration enforcement agents in the United States are increasingly employing a new smartphone application known as Mobile Fortify, which utilizes facial recognition technology to scan individuals in real time. This app allows agents to point their phone cameras at a person and instantly retrieve information from various federal and state databases. Concerns have emerged regarding the app’s accuracy, particularly since some federal courts have deemed certain databases too unreliable for use in arrest warrants.

According to a lawsuit filed by Illinois and Chicago against the federal agency earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has used Mobile Fortify to conduct over 100,000 scans of faces and fingerprints in the field. This marks a significant shift from previous uses of facial recognition in immigration enforcement, which had previously been limited primarily to investigations and designated points of entry.

The existence of Mobile Fortify was first revealed last summer by 404 Media, which reported on leaked internal emails. Documents obtained by 404 Media indicate that individuals cannot refuse to be scanned by the app. Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, expressed grave concerns, stating, “Here we have ICE using this technology in exactly the confluence of conditions that lead to the highest false match rates.” He further noted that a false match could drastically disrupt an individual’s life, warning of the implications for democratic rights.

The usage of Mobile Fortify has sparked protests and legal challenges. Activists have employed various tactics to counter ICE’s actions, including documenting agents’ activities and utilizing burner phones. The public backlash is driven by skepticism regarding the technology’s reliability, particularly since research indicates that error rates are higher when identifying women and people of color. Misidentification in high-pressure situations is more likely, especially if the individual is turning away from officers or if lighting conditions are poor.

The Illinois lawsuit specifically criticizes the federal agency’s use of Mobile Fortify, arguing that it exceeds the authority granted by Congress concerning the collection of biometric data. The complaint cites instances where federal agents allegedly photographed or scanned U.S. citizens in Illinois without their consent. In response to growing concerns, Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill on January 15, 2023, aiming to prohibit the DHS from using Mobile Fortify and similar applications, except for identification purposes at entry points.

In a statement, the DHS defended its use of Mobile Fortify, asserting that the program does not infringe on constitutional rights or privacy. A spokesperson stated that the app operates with a high matching threshold and queries only limited datasets from Customs and Border Protection (CBP). They emphasized that the application does not access open-source material or scrape social media.

According to 404 Media, the application’s database contains approximately 200 million images. The DHS maintains that Mobile Fortify is lawfully utilized nationwide and has not faced legal restrictions. Observers have noted that federal immigration agents often do not seek consent before scanning individuals’ faces. This practice raises significant concerns, as ICE has reportedly relied on biometric data as definitive proof of citizenship in the absence of identification, which heightens the risk of misidentification.

In a recent incident reported by 404 Media, Mobile Fortify misidentified a detained woman during an immigration raid, producing two incorrect names. Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), remarked that facial recognition should serve only as a preliminary measure. “If you treat this as an endpoint – as a definitive ID – you’re going to have errors and you’re going to end up arresting and jailing people that are not actually who the machine says they are,” he said.

Concerns regarding the over-reliance on facial recognition technology have prompted pushback from various law enforcement agencies across the country. Many departments now treat it as a lead rather than conclusive evidence. At least 15 states have enacted laws limiting the use of facial recognition technology by police. In 2019, San Francisco became the first major U.S. city to ban facial recognition for police and local government use.

In September 2023, the DHS issued a directive mandating that it assess the technology for bias and provide U.S. citizens with the option to opt out of non-law enforcement scans. However, this directive was reportedly rescinded in February of the following year.

ICE’s enforcement actions, whether involving facial scanning or not, have faced scrutiny and litigation. These actions have been referred to as “Kavanaugh stops,” named after Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who suggested that an individual’s “apparent ethnicity” could be a relevant factor for ICE to stop and demand proof of citizenship. In a related development, the ACLU filed a lawsuit earlier this month against the Trump administration, alleging racial profiling and unlawful arrests by federal immigration authorities.

The evolving landscape of facial recognition technology in immigration enforcement continues to raise significant ethical and legal questions, as stakeholders grapple with the balance between security and civil liberties.