Revealed: the contentious tool US immigration uses to get your data from tech firms
Documents show Ice has sent Google, Meta and Twitter at least 500 administrative subpoenas for information on their users
Johana Bhuiyan
Thu 25 May 2023 11.00 BST
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (Ice) sent tech giants including Google, Twitter and Meta at least 500 administrative subpoenas demanding sensitive personal information of users, documents reviewed by the Guardian show.
The practice highlights the vast amount of information Ice is trying to obtain without first showing probable cause. Administrative subpoenas are typically not court-certified, which means companies are not legally required to comply or respond until and unless a judge compels them to. The documents showed the firms handing over user information in some cases, although the full extent to which the companies complied is unclear.
It further highlights how broad of a net Ice is casting in its surveillance of migrants.
“When Ice gets subscriber data from Google or from Instagram they can combine that information with billions of other data points on hundreds of millions of US residents that they get access to from other companies,” said Hannah Lucal, data and tech fellow at Just Futures Law, one of the organizations that obtained the documents.
“While perhaps sounding benign or like a legal tool, administrative subpoenas are actually enabling very invasive Ice surveillance, not only of someone that the agency is targeting, but potentially also of anyone who might be communicating with that person on these tech platforms,” Lucal said.
The documents, which detail requests between 2018 and 2021, show most demands were related to the agency’s immigration enforcement efforts. A handful of cases were related to human smuggling and one was part of a murder investigation.
In the vast majority of cases, Ice demanded the companies hand over account information such as a person’s IP address over time and payment details.
In a few cases, the agency went much further, the documents show. In one instance, Ice asked Google for the account details behind a YouTube channel called Migrant Media, which shares resources about migrant issues (There are several channels with that name). In the subpoena, an Ice officer said the agency was seeking the names, addresses, screen names, payment and bill-face information “and any and all IP addresses associated w/ the YouTube page” as part of an ongoing “investigation or inquiry related to the enforcement of US immigration laws”. The subpoena did not provide any additional details on the nature of the inquiry. In another case, Ice asked Facebook for any location information associated with one account. And in yet another, Ice asked Facebook for “all public content photos, videos, wall posts, subscriber information and replies” associated with one user’s account.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... sonal-data