ICE seeks proprietary data and tech to monitor up to a million people 

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking to hire a company to help it mine through data sources including social media, international trade data, blockchain information, property records, and the dark web — the latest example of the agency looking to beef up the tools and platforms it uses in its enforcement operations. 

In a government procurement posting published late last month, ICE said it was interested in deploying a service that can continuously monitor a million people or entities of interest — and analyze trends for the purpose of “identifying potentially criminal and fraudulent behavior before crime and fraud can materialize,” among other goals. 

In a request for information for “Data Analytics” shared by ICE’s investigations and operations support office in suburban Dallas, the government component outlined a range of requirements that it might seek from a contractor, like staff support, data analytics, and access to proprietary data. The point of the contract, the agency said in the posting, is to establish a blanket purchase agreement that would allow any entity within ICE to use the service. 

The contractor, according to a detailed document included in the posting, is supposed to use a wide range of data, including its own, to help determine, for example, whether people or entities are “violating or attempting to violate U.S. immigration and customs laws or participating in government programs through potentially fraudulent misrepresentation.” The agency said agents and other ICE staffers require data analytics support for screening and vetting, developing leads for analyzing criminal activity, and conducting analysis of criminal networks and associations. 

ICE outlined a range of data the contractor would work with, including business associations, court records, social media posts on platforms like X and TikTok, the dark web, international travel data, shipping information, geolocation information (including information from license plate readers), crime data, property records, supply chain information, information about cryptocurrency and blockchain, scientific research and development data, and international patent info. 

The RFI noted that entities within the ICE subcomponent Homeland Security Investigations need the service for both commercial fraud and general “school fraud” investigations, as well as its work on “the exponential growth of internet and global online fraud and crime posing a threat to national security.” 

“The continuous monitoring and alert system to track content from the available sources for specified new data and information enhances the mission to proactively scrutinize known or suspected crime, identify and disrupt terrorist criminal enterprises, prevent exploitation of the nation’s immigration system and to expand the resource equities within the various law enforcement agencies and intelligence communities,” the RFI said. “The continuous monitoring and alert service must be able to monitor a million individuals or entities of interest.”

The RFI is described as a recompete, meaning that while a company previously provided the agency support for the work, the agency is interested in what other private sector firms might have to offer. A Department of Homeland Security procurement specialist told FedScoop that the previous holder of the contract was CACI and that the solicitation would become available later this year. 

“CACI is the incumbent and their contract is coming to its end,” a contracting officer told FedScoop in an email. “The purpose of market research is always for the Government to gather information and decide how best the Government can get the requirements we need. The RFI is not a solicitation.”

FedScoop emails to ICE’s press office went unanswered.

CACI, which declined to comment, has historically held many contracts with ICE, and GovCIO won a data analytics and program management contract from the agency earlier this year.  

Newer entrants to the government contract spaces are increasingly interested in working with the Department of Homeland Security. Anduril, for instance, has provided surveillance towers to Customs and Border Protection. Palantir, which did not comment for this story, appears to be building a new service for ICE called ImmigrationOS that’s supposed to help the agency with tracking “self-deportation” and enforcement and removal operations. Palantir has also launched its Foundry platform within DHS, according to both Wired and the New York Times.

Some technical and privacy experts expressed concerns about the breadth of the contract, as well as the potential that the software could be used to monitor the opinions people express online. 

“We know that comprehensive surveillance of the U.S. population is a goal of this administration and the scope of this RFI reflects that ambition,” Emily Tucker, executive director at Georgetown Law’s Center for Privacy and Technology, told FedScoop. “The language emphasizing the government’s interest in ‘proprietary data’ for a wide range of policing activities is especially concerning from the perspective of civil and human rights.”

Dave Maass of the Electronic Frontier Foundation noted that “in the modern age, when we think about ICE, we have to recognize it’s not just sworn officers anymore, but a network of private intelligence contractors who get paid to probe a vast array of data. The rhetoric of this administration raises questions about whether these services will be used to target actual fentanyl dealers and terrorists or used to persecute people and organizations that the administration has deemed ‘criminal’ because their views don’t align with the MAGA agenda.”

A former expert in artificial intelligence based at the White House told FedScoop that the scope of the work outlined in the request for information was staggering. They emphasized that contractors could gain access to a vast amount of data about people without significant accountability and oversight mechanisms. 

Brian Hofer, the chair and executive director of Secure Justice, a nonprofit that focuses on the reduction of corporate and government overreach, told FedScoop that government buying of commercially available information is, in part, a way to “get around the protections provided by the Constitution, specifically the Fourth Amendment.” 

“This is just another instance where ICE is looking to contract with a company that will collect data and leverage data that the government would not necessarily be able to collect itself without some type of court order,” he added.