ICE & Technology - A Highly Unpleasant Pair
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been found possessing technology that can biometrically scan and track citizens, without prior knowledge or consent. ICE has been using AI technology to quickly scan and match faces of US residents not carrying IDs, and has stored the data for tracking down, detaining and deporting individuals. This technology has been widely implemented this year with the rise of the mass deportations from the Trump administration, but has raised serious ethical questions regarding the relationship between technology and our basic rights.
ICE has no right to be possessing technology this powerful. The fact that there is a government database that contains and can collect biometric data from any American at will and continue to store and track that data without consent already may violate our first and fourth amendment rights - our right to privacy is violated from the government’s ability to fully track our exact biological information and location in one giant, centralized data bank for all US citizens, and the fact that ICE can use this database and AI without a warrant for anyone on the street to verify their citizenship challenges our fourth amendment rights to searches without a warrant or seizure. ICE has been granted an eye into the lives of citizens' private lives - and can potentially watch us at any time.
The technology ICE is using goes far beyond the required technology for ICE’s original immigration deportation goals. AI facial recognition systems are far more efficient than going through legal documents and verifying the citizenship of residents manually, but requiring technology that can store essentially everything about everyone in the United States and track immigrants is far beyond necessary, especially without clear guidelines or warrants. There is a clear difference in detaining illegal aliens and keeping a close eye and spying on all American citizens, and in the wrong hands, there is a serious risk of information breaches, abuses of power using the technology and unconstitutional deportations.
AI isn’t fully trustworthy yet - the technology is still developing, and we can’t rely on AI to make decisions as impactful as identifying citizenships and confirming deportations with full confidence. The contracting firms behind the technologies haven’t fully been audited and haven’t been authorized as a trustworthy source to the American public - much of the action and technology has been hidden away from citizens, making it difficult to trust the government and ICE’s deportations and actions when using biometric scanners daily on the streets to send people out of the country. Senator Ron Wyden warns that ICE could use this technology to trample on the rights of anyone Trump labels as an enemy - we would never be able to tell if the technology is truly accurate, or manipulated on the government’s accord to act favorably towards them.
ICE needs not to get rid of the technology, but define boundaries and limits of the power that they have over private information. There needs to be a clear standard on when facial recognition and tracking technology is used, not for civilians on the street but for legitimate, warranted reasons that are Constitutionally backed. The firms behind the companies contracting for ICE need to be audited by independent firms and made credible to the public, and the intentions of keeping such a large database of information needs to be more transparent, requiring consent and knowledge from Americans that they know the government holds information about them. This way, the American freedom defined centuries ago will be upheld.
