ICE’s 24/7 Social Media Surveillance Program Raises Privacy Concerns

When most people think about immigration enforcement, they picture border crossings and airport checkpoints. But the new front line may be your social media feed.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has published a request for information seeking private-sector contractors to launch a round-the-clock social media monitoring program. The contractors would be paid to systematically analyze posts from platforms including Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Reddit, WhatsApp, YouTube and others, transforming public posts into enforcement leads that feed directly into ICE’s databases.

The initiative reads like something out of a cyber thriller: dozens of analysts working in shifts, strict deadlines measured in minutes, a tiered system for prioritizing high-risk individuals, and sophisticated software keeping constant watch.

This marks a concerning evolution in a longer trend that shifts U.S. border enforcement from physical spaces into the digital realm, according to researchers who study the intersection of data governance and federal operations.

Expanding the Surveillance Architecture

ICE already monitors social media using services like ShadowDragon’s SocialNet, which scans most major online platforms. The agency has also contracted with Zignal Labs for AI-powered social media monitoring. Similarly, Customs and Border Protection reviews social media posts on devices of some travelers at ports of entry, while the State Department examines social media during visa application processes.

What’s changing dramatically is both scale and structure. Rather than government agents gathering evidence on a case-by-case basis, ICE is creating a public-private surveillance system that transforms everyday online activity into potential enforcement data.

Private contractors would scrape publicly available information and correlate findings with data from commercial brokers like LexisNexis Accurint and Thomson Reuters CLEAR, alongside government databases. Analysts must produce dossiers for ICE field offices within tight deadlines – sometimes just 30 minutes for high-priority cases.

These files would feed directly into Palantir Technologies’ Investigative Case Management system, the digital backbone of modern immigration enforcement. There, social media data joins a web of license plate scans, utility records, property data, and biometrics, creating what amounts to a searchable portrait of individuals’ lives.

Wide-Reaching Impacts

While ICE maintains that data collection would focus on people already linked to ongoing cases or potential threats, the surveillance net reaches much wider in practice.

The concern is that when one person is flagged, their entire network – friends, relatives, fellow organizers or acquaintances – can become subjects of scrutiny. Previous contracts for facial recognition tools and location tracking have demonstrated how easily such systems expand beyond their original scope. What begins as targeted enforcement can evolve into surveillance of entire communities.

ICE frames the project as modernization: a method to identify targets’ locations by detecting aliases and patterns that traditional approaches might miss. Planning documents state contractors cannot create fake profiles and must store all analysis on ICE servers.

However, history suggests these safeguards often prove inadequate. Investigations have revealed how informal data-sharing between local police and federal agents has allowed ICE to access systems it wasn’t authorized to use. The agency has repeatedly purchased massive datasets from brokers to circumvent warrant requirements and has quietly maintained contracts for surveillance software despite White House restrictions.

Growing Surveillance Ecosystem

ICE’s vendor ecosystem continues expanding, incorporating Clearview AI for face matching, ShadowDragon’s SocialNet for network mapping, Babel Street’s location history service Locate X, and LexisNexis for personal information lookups. The agency is also purchasing tools from surveillance firm PenLink that combine location data with social media information. Together, these platforms make continuous, automated monitoring not only possible but routine.

The United States isn’t alone in this approach. In the United Kingdom, a police unit tasked with scanning online discussions about immigration and civil unrest has faced criticism for blurring the line between public safety and political surveillance. Globally, spyware scandals have demonstrated how surveillance tools initially justified for counterterrorism have been later deployed against journalists and activists.

Chilling Effects on Civil Society

Around-the-clock surveillance doesn’t just gather information – it changes behavior. Research found that visits to Wikipedia articles on terrorism dropped sharply after revelations about the NSA’s global surveillance program in 2013.

For immigrants and activists, the stakes are considerably higher. A post about a protest or a joke can be reinterpreted as “intelligence.” Awareness that federal contractors may be watching in real time encourages self-censorship and discourages civic participation. In this environment, one’s digital identity – composed of biometric markers, algorithmic classifications, risk scores and online traces – becomes a risk factor that follows individuals across platforms and databases.

What’s genuinely new is the privatization of interpretation. ICE isn’t just collecting more data; it’s outsourcing judgment to private contractors. These analysts, aided by artificial intelligence, will likely decide what online behavior signals danger, making rapid assessments across large populations largely beyond public oversight.

Civil liberties advocates argue for greater transparency regarding the algorithms and scoring systems ICE employs, suggesting that law enforcement should meet the same warrant standards online as they do in physical spaces. Organizations like the Brennan Center for Justice advocate for independent oversight of surveillance systems to check for accuracy and bias, while several senators have introduced legislation to limit bulk purchases from data brokers.

Without such safeguards, the boundary between border control and everyday life will likely continue to dissolve, potentially ensnaring anyone whose online presence fits the system’s profile of concern.