Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is surveying the commercial advertising technology market for tools capable of supplying location data and large-scale analytics to federal investigators, according to a recent Request for Information (RFI).
Framed as market research rather than a procurement, the RFI seeks information from companies offering “Ad Tech compliant and location data services” that could support criminal, civil, and administrative investigations across ICE’s mission set.
The RFI, issued by ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), emphasizes that the government is not soliciting proposals or committing to a future contract, but it does signal active interest in selecting vendors for live demonstrations of operational platforms and data services, a step that typically precedes pilot deployments or integration into existing investigative environments.
ICE says it is attempting to better understand how commercial big data providers and advertising technology firms might directly support investigative activities, while remaining sensitive to “regulatory constraints and privacy expectations.”
The agency noted that its components are handling increasing volumes of criminal, civil, and administrative information from both internal and external sources and are assessing whether commercial off-the-shelf platforms comparable to large investigative data and legal analytics providers can help manage and exploit that data at scale.
At the center of the inquiry is a category of information traditionally associated with digital advertising rather than law enforcement: location data, device identifiers, IP intelligence, and behavioral signals derived from everyday consumer activity.
Advertising technology, commonly referred to as ad tech, is the sprawling ecosystem of software, data brokers, analytics platforms, and intermediaries that power targeted advertising on the modern Internet.
Ad tech companies collect and process information about where devices are located, how users move between physical and digital spaces, which apps are installed on their phones, and how devices can be linked across websites, applications, and networks.
While the industry typically frames this activity as anonymous or pseudonymous, the underlying data is often persistent, granular, and capable of tracking individuals over time.
Location data is a particularly valuable component of that ecosystem. Mobile applications routinely share latitude and longitude coordinates with advertising partners through embedded software development kits.
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