How ICE is using facial recognition in Minnesota | Technology
How ICE is using facial recognition in Minnesota | Technology
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/27/ice-facial-recognition-minnesota
Publish Date: 2026-01-27 10:31:00
Source Domain: www.theguardian.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.
Protesters are using a variety of tactics to fight back. They include recording masked agents, using burner phones and donated dashboard cameras, according to the Washington Post.
Underpinning resistance to ICE’s use of facial recognition are doubts about the technology’s efficacy. Research has uncovered higher error rates in identifying women and people of color…
