How ICE Already Knows Who Minneapolis Protesters Are (nytimes.com)
‘Agents use facial recognition, social media monitoring and other tech tools not only to identify undocumented immigrants but also to track protesters, current and former officials said.’
An ICE agent walked over to a woman in a car near where she worked and addressed her by name. They'd never met before. He said he had facial recognition and his body cam was on. She was one of seven people told by ICE that ICE had facial recognition of them. None had consented.
The facial recogntion tech is made by Clearview AI and Mobile Fortify. They use a database built by Palantir, which ‘combines government and commercial data to identify real-time locations for individuals they are pursuing’.
ICE's budget currently is $28b, the highest funding out of any law enforcement agency in the US.
‘Homeland Security Department awarded Palantir a nearly $30 million contract to build a system backed by artificial intelligence that would help find and track individuals for deportation.’
DHS uses Paragon (Pegasus), reportedly, and Penlink (Nebraska based).
At a protest, ‘Two photos captured fatigue-clad agents using cellphones to scan the faces of protesters in Minneapolis, while in one video, agents could be heard telling people that they were being recorded with facial recognition technology and that their faces would be added to a database.’ This tech was Mobile Fortify, created for Customs and Border Protection.
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