Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is using a new mobile phone app that can identify someone based on their fingerprints or face by simply pointing a smartphone camera at them, according to internal ICE emails viewed by 404 Media. The underlying system used for the facial recognition component of the app is ordinarily used when people enter or exit the U.S. Now, that system is being used inside the U.S. by ICE to identify people in the field.

The news highlights the Trump administration’s growing use of sophisticated technology for its mass deportation efforts and ICE’s enforcement of its arrest quotas. The document also shows how biometric systems built for one reason can be repurposed for another, a constant fear and critique from civil liberties proponents of facial recognition tools.

“The Mobile Fortify App empowers users with real-time biometric identity verification capabilities utilizing contactless fingerprints and facial images captured by the camera on an ICE issued cell phone without a secondary collection device,” one of the emails, which was sent to all Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) personnel and seen by 404 Media, reads. ERO is the section of ICE specifically focused on deporting people.

The idea is for ICE to use this new tool to identify people whose identity ICE officers do not know. “This information can be used to identify unknown subjects in the field,” the email continues. “Officers are reminded that the fingerprint matching is currently the most accurate biometric indicator available in the application,” it adds, indicating that the fingerprint functionality is more accurate than the facial recognition component.

The emails also show the app has a “training range,” a feature that lets ICE officers practice capturing facial images and fingerprints in a “training non-live environment.”

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A video posted to social media this month shows apparent ICE officers carefully pointing their phones at a protester in his vehicle, but it is not clear if the officers were taking ordinary photos or using this tool.

Broadly, facial recognition tools work by taking one image to be tested and comparing it to a database of other images. Clearview AI for example, a commercially available facial recognition tool which is used by law enforcement but which doesn’t appear to be related to this ICE tool, compares a photo to a massive database of peoples’ photos scraped from social media and the wider web.

For the facial recognition capability of this ICE tool, the emails say Mobile Fortify is using two government systems. The first is Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Traveler Verification Service. As part of the Traveler Verification Service, CBP takes photos of peoples’ faces when they enter the U.S. and compares these to previously collected ones. In an airport those can include photos from a passport, visa, or earlier CBP encounters, according to a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) previously published by CBP. With land crossings, that can include a gallery of “frequent” crossers for that port of entry, the PIA adds.

The second is the Seizure and Apprehension Workflow. This is what the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) describes as an “intelligence aggregator,” bringing together information related to searches and seizures.

“The app uses CBP's Traveler Verification Service and the Seizure and Apprehension Workflow that contains the biometric gallery of individuals for whom CBP maintains derogatory information for facial recognition,” the email reads. The exact definition of derogatory information in this context is not clear but 404 Media has previously reported on a database that ICE uses to find “derogatory” speech online.
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One of the internal ICE emails says the app also has a “Super Query” functionality, which is available to ICE officers who also have access to another CBP system called the Unified Passenger Login system (UPAX) which is used for passenger vetting. “This additional tool allows the user to Super Query the facial or biometric results to better assist in determining the immigration status of the person in question,” the email says.

One of the emails says the tool uses DHS’s Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT), the agency’s central biometric system, for the fingerprint matches.

ICE did not respond to a request for comment. CBP acknowledged a request for comment but did not provide a response in time for publication.

ICE already has access to other facial recognition tools. A 404 Media review of public procurement records shows at least $3,614,000 worth of contracts between the agency and Clearview, for example. Clearview’s tool may reveal a subject’s name and social media profiles. But the company’s results won’t include information on a person’s immigration status or other data held by the government, whereas a government curated tool might.

“This information can be used to identify unknown subjects in the field.”

The Mobile Fortify app is just the latest example of ICE turning to technological solutions to support its deportation mission. 404 Media previously revealed Palantir, for example, was working with ICE to build a system to help find the location of people flagged for deportation as part of a $30 million contract extension. Palantir is now a “more mature partner to ICE,” according to leaked internal Palantir discussions 404 Media obtained.

At first facial recognition was a capability only available to the government. Over the last several years the technology has proliferated enough that ordinary members of the public can access commercially available tools that reveal someone’s identity just with a photo, or build their own tailored tools. On Tuesday 404 Media reported that a site called ‘FuckLAPD.com’ is able to identify police officers using a database of officer photos obtained through public records requests. The same artist who made that tool also created one called ICEspy, which is designed to identify employees of ICE, although the underlying data is out of date.

ICE officers are consistently wearing masks, neck gaiters, sunglasses, and baseball caps to mask their identity while detaining people.

According to internal ICE data obtained by NBC News, the Trump administration has arrested only 6 percent of known immigrant murderers. Meanwhile, ICE continues to detain nonviolent, working members of immigrant communities who have lived in the country for decades, particularly in Los Angeles. NBC News says almost half of the people currently in ICE custody have neither been convicted or charged with any crime.

In May, the Trump administration gave ICE a quota of 3,000 arrests a day.

Trump administration sets quota to arrest 3,000 people a day in anti-immigration agenda

The target was delivered by Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem, and triples figures fromearlier this year

^{José Olivares (The Guardian)}

404 Media

2025-06-24 13:43:47

‘FuckLAPD.com’ Lets Anyone Use Facial Recognition to Instantly Identify Cops

A new site, FuckLAPD.com, is using public records and facial recognition technology to allow anyone to identify police officers in Los Angeles they have a picture of. The tool, made by artist Kyle McDonald, is designed to help people identify cops who may otherwise try to conceal their identity, such as covering their badge or serial number.

“We deserve to know who is shooting us in the face even when they have their badge covered up,” McDonald told me when I asked if the site was made in response to police violence during the LA protests against ICE that started earlier this month. “fucklapd.com is a response to the violence of the LAPD during the recent protests against the horrific ICE raids. And more broadly—the failure of the LAPD to accomplish anything useful with over $2B in funding each year.”

“Cops covering up their badges? ID them with their faces instead,” the site, which McDonald said went live this Saturday. The tool allows users to upload an image of a police officer’s face to search over 9,000 LAPD headshots obtained via public record requests. The site says image processing happens on the device, and no photos or data are transmitted or saved on the site. “Blurry, low-resolution photos will not match,” the site says.

“fucklapd.com uses data provided by the City of Los Angeles directly to the public,” McDonald told me in an email. “This data has been provided in response to either public records requests or public records lawsuits. That means all of this information belongs to the public and is a matter of public record. fucklapd.com is not scraping any data.”

In addition to potentially identifying officers by name and serial number, FuckLAPD.com also pulls up a police officer’s salary.

“Surprisingly it [the domain name] only costs $10 a year to exercise my first amendment right to say fucklapd.com,” McDonald said.
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I tested the tools by grabbing an image of a white and bald police officer from an LAPD press conference addressing its use of force during the anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles. I uploaded the image to the site, and within a few seconds the site presented me with nine headshots of officers who could be possible matches, all of them bald white men. The first correctly identified the cop in the image I uploaded.

Clicking “view profile” under the result sent me to the Watch the Watchers site by the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, a community group based in the Skid Row neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles. “All of the information on this website comes from records that were deliberately made public by the City of Los Angeles in response to either public records requests or public records lawsuits,” the Watch the Watchers site says. “We plan to keep refreshing this data from new public records requests as well as to add other data.” Stop LAPD Spying Coalition is not associated with FuckLAPD.com and did not endorse the site.

McDonald told me that since the site launched, it had around 50,000 visitors, but “Because the analysis happens on-device I have no way of knowing what people are using it for, except for some people who have posted screenshots to Twitter or Instagram,” he said.

In 2018 McDonald made another tool called ICEspy which used hundreds of photos of ICE employees from LinkedIn and does much the same thing as FuckLAPD.com. “This app is designed to highlight and embarrass the organization committing atrocities against refugees and immigrants to the United States,” ICEspy’s website says. That tool originally used a Microsoft API, before Microsoft restricted access to it. McDonald said on X that he recently relaunched the tool to run locally on devices. 404 Media tested ICEspy using images of ICE employees on LinkedIn to verify if the tool worked and each result was incorrect; McDonald indicated on X he was looking for others to re-scrape LinkedIn and update the database.

Over the last few months ICE officers have consistently worn masks, neck gaiters, sunglasses, and baseball caps to shield their identity while often refusing to provide their name or even confirm the agency they belong to. This includes while violently assaulting people, detaining U.S. citizens, and pointing weapons at bystanders, leaving little room for recourse or accountability against the individual agents or the agency.

ICE’s constant use of masks has created a climate where people cannot be sure that the heavily armed group of men coming towards them are really federal agents or not. In Philadelphia, a man pretended to be an ICE agent in order to rob an auto repair shop and zip tie an employee. In Brooklyn, a man posed as an immigration officer before attempting to rape a woman.

ICE claims that assaults against its officers have increased by 413 percent, and use this as the justification for covering their faces. But as Philip Bump showed in the Washington Postthere are still plenty of questions about those numbers and their accuracy. ICE says its officers’ family members have been doxed too.

Neither the LAPD or ICE responded to a request for comment.

Joseph Cox contributed reporting.

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^{Eyewitness News (ABC7 New York)}