Chuck DarwinImmigration 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
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