Social media videos have confirmed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers patrolling US streets are actively using facial recognition technology to verify citizenship, 404 Media reported.
In one video posted on a Chicago-based Instagram account, a self-described teenager and US citizen tells officers that he has no government ID. After he offers to show his student ID instead, the officer turns to another and asks, “can you do facial?” As the other officer pulls up an app to scan the teen’s face, the first officer tells the teenager to “relax” while alleging that “a lot of parents” tell their kids they were born in the US. The video ends after the officer takes the minor’s photo and asks the teen to verify that his name matches what the app’s database pulled up.
It’s unclear which app the officers used during this Chicago stop. But 404 Media has been closely tracking ICE and CBP’s increasing use of face scans amid the Trump administration’s nationwide mass deportation campaign, which critics slam as largely rooted in racial profiling. Earlier this year, 404 Media reviewed leaked emails confirming that ICE was using Mobile Fortify, which allows agents to scan “an unprecedented number of government databases” and compare face matches against a database of 200 million images.
With one pic, the app can “return the subject’s name, date of birth, alien number, and whether they’ve been given an order of deportation,” 404 Media reported. And that’s just one facial recognition tool in ICE’s arsenal, Bernie Sanders and seven Democratic senators noted in a September letter urging ICE to cease using Mobile Fortify and other biometric technology that “is often biased and inaccurate, especially for communities of color.”
These tools have been “proven to foster environments that increase racial profiling,” senators wrote, and “are likely to be disproportionately weaponized against communities of color.” Noting that ICE “wrongfully detained” a US citizen for 30 hours “in a county jail based on an incorrect ‘biometric confirmation of his identity,'” senators insisted ICE’s use of face scans are “unacceptable” and must end.