As Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducts raids across the country, the agency is working quickly to expand an online surveillance system that could potentially track millions of users across the Internet. Federal Records discovered by Lever reveal that ICE is paying $5.7 million to apply an artificial intelligence-based social media monitoring platform called Zignal Labs, in what Will Owen, director of communications for the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), calls an “attack” on democracy and free speech.
The “real-time intelligence” platform is capable of ingesting and analyzing massive amounts of publicly available data, such as social media posts, according to his website. IN brochure provided by LeverZignal Labs says it uses machine learning, computer vision and optical character recognition to analyze more than 8 billion posts a day in over 100 languages. This allows the data to be processed and sorted into “curated discovery channels” that ICE can apply to flag people for deportation.
The brochure highlights Zignal’s ability to capture geographically localized images and video while providing alerts and information to “operators.” One example states that Zignal Labs used its technology to analyze a Telegram video showing “the exact location of an ongoing operation in Gaza.” The company says its tool identified emblems and patches to “confirm the operators involved,” enabling notification to operators in the field. This means that ICE could potentially track someone’s location based on the location attached to a video posted on TikTok or even a photo on Facebook.
ICE purchased contract with Zignal Labs through Carahsofta company implementing IT solutions for government agencies. Mostly from Zignal laboratories recently partnered with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to analyze weather events from public and online media sources. According to him, in 2019 he also signed a contract with the US Secret Service and cooperates with the Department of Defense and the Department of Transport. Lever. Edge contacted Zignal Labs asking for more information about the ICE contract but did not immediately receive a response.
Social media surveillance is nothing modern. In 2016, the American Civil Liberties Union discovered that police were using a CIA-backed tool called Geofeedia to track anti-police brutality protesters on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. But with multi-billion fundsICE has the budget to apply a range of social media monitoring tools that can lead to arrests and deportations across the country.
“Given the billions of dollars spent on spyware, it is extremely disturbing to think how far ICE will go in surveilling social media,” Owen says. “ICE is a lawless agency that will use artificial intelligence-based social media monitoring not only to terrorize immigrant families, but also to attack activists fighting against their abuses. It is an attack on our democracy and the right to free speech, driven by an algorithm and paid for by our taxes.”
“The scale of this espionage is accompanied by an equally massive chilling effect on free speech.”
Earlier this month report from Wire revealed that ICE plans to hire nearly 30 employees to scour content on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube and other social media platforms to “locate individuals who pose a threat to national security, public safety and/or otherwise further ICE’s law enforcement mission.”
AND document seen by Wire shows that ICE is soliciting information from contractors who could facilitate the agency implement the initiative, which may even require workers to search for information about a victim’s family members, friends or co-workers to facilitate ICE officers determine their whereabouts. The document indicates that ICE will place about 12 contractors in a monitoring facility in Vermont, while 16 employees will work in California and some will be required to be available “at all times.”
Says David Greene, director of civil liberties at the Electronic Frontier Foundation Edge that AI-powered automated monitoring tools will give the government the ability to “monitor social media for viewpoints it doesn’t like on a scale that has never been possible with human review alone.” Greene adds: “The scale of this espionage is accompanied by an equally massive chilling effect on free speech.”
Outside of social media, 404 Media reports that ICE has surveillance cameras scanning license plates were usedbut also gained access to the tool that tracks the movement of millions of phones.
The Trump administration’s plans for social media surveillance extend beyond ICE to include Citizenship and Immigration Services proposing an initiative it would require people applying for U.S. citizenship or personal residence to provide social media account details. In 2019, the Department of State began requiring some visa applicants to provide their social media contact information on sites they used in the past year, but the agency expanded this request to: introduce more types of non-immigrant visas in June.
The U.S. government has already begun searching social media for posts that do not align with the Trump administration’s viewpoint. It started in March AI-powered Catch and Invalid initiative. to track posts by student visa holders that appear to support Hamas or other designated terrorist organizations. Department of State also announced earlier this month that it had revoked the visas of six people who the United States said “celebrated” the shooting of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk. This week, ICE arrested nine street vendors on Canal Street in Up-to-date York shortly after a conservative influencer tagged ICE in a post showing vendors in the area.
But now, with ICE’s powerful AI-powered social media monitoring tool in its hands, the agency won’t need influencers to flag people for deportation, and speaking freely online will become even riskier.
“This is yet another example of Big Tech CEOs collaborating with an increasingly authoritarian federal government as Trump continues to attempt to restrict free speech,” says Sacha Haworth, executive director of the Tech Oversight Project Edge. “This should horrify and anger every American.”