After a 2021 "data pause", ICE continually expanded a one-year, $816,700 contract signed with Babel Street in 2019. The contract has so far paid out more than $3.6 million and is active into 2024.
I went to the ICE website and looked at their ‘most wanted’ list. The Guzman band of brothers were front and center. If I understand correctly, ICE contracts with Babel Street to use cell phone data to track people like the Guzmans. The question I have is, who else are they tracking if they are being disingenuous about ID’ing their contracts?
The ICE procurement was primarily through their Homeland Security Investigations division -- as opposed to Enforcement and Removal Operations -- but the Inspector General noted that there was improper logging of queries in 2019, and, more broadly, a problem of "shared credentials" and "oversight gaps". So it's hard to say that DHS's usage of cellphone location-tracking was limited to anything in particular.
I went to the ICE website and looked at their ‘most wanted’ list. The Guzman band of brothers were front and center. If I understand correctly, ICE contracts with Babel Street to use cell phone data to track people like the Guzmans. The question I have is, who else are they tracking if they are being disingenuous about ID’ing their contracts?
The ICE procurement was primarily through their Homeland Security Investigations division -- as opposed to Enforcement and Removal Operations -- but the Inspector General noted that there was improper logging of queries in 2019, and, more broadly, a problem of "shared credentials" and "oversight gaps". So it's hard to say that DHS's usage of cellphone location-tracking was limited to anything in particular.