#fortify : to strengthen and secure by forts or batteries, or by surrounding with a wall or ditch or other military works
- French: fortifier
- German: befestigt
- Italian: fortificare
- Portuguese: fortificar
- Spanish: fortalece
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Try our new word guessing game @ https://24hippos.com
Immigration enforcement agents across the US are increasingly relying on a new smartphone app with facial recognition technology.
The app is named #Mobile #Fortify.
Simply pointing a phone’s camera at their intended target and scanning the person’s face
allows Mobile Fortify to pull data on an individual from multiple federal and state databases,
some of which federal courts have deemed too inaccurate for arrest warrants.
The US Department of Homeland Security has used Mobile Fortify to scan faces and fingerprints in the field more than 100,000 times,
according to a lawsuit brought by Illinois and Chicago against the federal agency, earlier this month.
That’s a drastic shift from immigration enforcement’s earlier use of facial recognition technology,
which was otherwise limited largely to investigations and ports of entry and exit, legal experts say.
The app’s existence was first uncovered last summer by 404 Media, through leaked emails.
404 Media also reported, in October, about internal DHS documents that say people cannot refuse to be scanned by Mobile Fortify.
“Here we have ICE using this technology in exactly the confluence of conditions that lead to the highest false match rates,”
says Nathan Freed Wessler,
deputy director of the ACLU’s speech, privacy and technology project.
“A false result from this technology can turn somebody’s life totally upside down.”
The larger implications for democracy are chilling, too, he notes:
“ICE is effectively trying to create a biometric checkpoint society.”
Use of the app has inspired backlash on the streets, in courts, and on Capitol Hill.
According to 404 Media, the app’s database consists of some 200m images. “
Mobile Fortify has not been blocked, restricted, or curtailed by the courts or by legal guidance.
It is lawfully used nationwide in accordance with all applicable legal authorities.”
Observers, experts, and at least one congressman have said
federal immigration agents frequently do not ask for consent to scan a person’s face
– and may dismiss other documentation that contradicts this data.
ICE has been documented using biometrics as a definitive determination of someone’s citizenship in the absence of identification.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/27/ice-facial-recognition-minnesota?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
In practical terms, smartphones generate at least three kinds of digital exposure.
The first is identification risk,
including through facial recognition technology.
When you post footage, you may be sharing identifiable faces, tattoos, voices, license plates, school logos or even a distinctive jacket.
That can enable law enforcement to identify people in your recordings through investigative tools,
and online crowds to identify people and dox or harass them, or both.
That risk grows when agencies deploy facial recognition in the field.
For example, ICE is using a facial recognition app called #Mobile #Fortify.
Facial recognition accuracy also isn’t neutral.
National Institute of Standards and Technology testing has documented that the technology does not perform equally across different demographic groups,
meaning the risk of misidentification is not evenly distributed across groups.
For example, studies have shown lower recognition accuracy for people with darker skin color.
Second is the risk of revealing your location.
Footage isn’t just images. Photos and video files often contain #metadata such as timestamps and locations,
and platforms also maintain additional logs.
Even if you never post, your phone still emits a steady stream of location signals.
This matters because agencies can obtain location through multiple channels, often with different levels of oversight.
Agencies can request location or other data from companies through warrants or court orders,
including geofence warrants that sweep up data about every device in a place during a set time window.
Agencies can also buy location data from brokers.
The Federal Trade Commission has penalized firms for unlawfully selling sensitive location information.
There are more pathways for tracking than most people realize,
and not all are constrained by the courtroom rules people picture when they think “warrant.”
The third type of potential exposure is the risk of having your phone seized.
If police seize your phone, temporarily or for evidence,
your exposure isn’t just the video you shot.
It can include your contacts and message history,
your photo roll,
location history
and cloud accounts synced to the device.
Civil liberties groups that publish protest safety guidance consistently recommend
disabling the face and fingerprint unlocking features
and using a strong passcode.
Law enforcement officials can compel you to use biometrics more easily in some contexts than reveal memorized secrets.
#fortify : to strengthen and secure by forts or batteries, or by surrounding with a wall or ditch or other military works
- French: fortifier
- German: befestigt
- Italian: fortificare
- Portuguese: fortificar
- Spanish: fortalece
------------
Try our new word guessing game @ https://24hippos.com
#fortify : to strengthen and secure by forts or batteries, or by surrounding with a wall or ditch or other military works
- French: fortifier
- German: befestigt
- Italian: fortificare
- Portuguese: fortificar
- Spanish: fortalece
------------
Word of The Hour's Annual Survey @ https://wordofthehour.org/r/form
Your responses to the questions below will directly impact the future of Word of The Hour. Your support and kindness has really meant a lot over the past three years. Thank you so much! Michael Wehar https://wordofthehour.org [email protected]
As organizations race to fortify their digital infrastructures, many are turning to extreme surveillance technologies to monitor employees and prevent cyber threats. But beneath this trend lies a deeper, psychological conflict: Does increased cybersecurity monitoring create safer...
#readersclub #organizations #fortify #digital #turning #extreme
#fortify : to strengthen and secure by forts or batteries, or by surrounding with a wall or ditch or other military works
- French: fortifier
- German: befestigt
- Italian: fortificare
- Portuguese: fortificar
- Spanish: fortalece
------------
Word of The Hour's Annual Survey @ https://wordofthehour.org/r/form
Your responses to the questions below will directly impact the future of Word of The Hour. Your support and kindness has really meant a lot over the past three years. Thank you so much! Michael Wehar https://wordofthehour.org [email protected]
As organizations race to fortify their digital infrastructures, many are turning to extreme surveillance technologies to monitor employees and prevent cyber threats. But beneath this trend lies a deeper, psychological conflict: Does increased cybersecurity monitoring create safer...
#readersclub #organizations #fortify #digital #turning #extreme
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