ICE now using AI software that can search eight billion social media posts per day

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has gotten a new $5.7 million, five-year contract for AI-based social media surveillance software licenses. The contract is with a company called Carahsoft Technology for a product it has called Zignal Labs. The licenses are being provided to Homeland Security Investigation (HSI), ICE’s intelligence unit that specializes in real-time data analysis for criminal investigations.

Zignal Labs uses AI and machine learning to scan through eight billion social media posts per day, providing curated detection feeds to law enforcement. According to Jacobin, the Zignal Labs platform is also used by the Israeli military as well as the Pentagon. ICE’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), first procured Zignal Labs licenses for the US Secret Service in 2019.

This platform is not the only one which ICE is using, it also has other tools like ShadowDragon for mapping online activity and Babel X which links social media profiles to SSN/location. ICE has also recently signed a $7 million contract with SOS International LLC (SOSi) for skip tracing services that helps to locate people. ICE also has plans to create a team that monitors social media all day, every day.

ICE has been making headlines ever since President Trump came back to the White House and began deporting migrants the government believes do not have a right to be in the country. With Zignal Labs in ICE’s toolkit, it could make the agency’s job easier when it comes to deportations, however, the move has faced criticism from the likes of ACLU which warns this is black box technology that raises civil liberty concerns regarding privacy and free speech.

It’s no secret that the US government is monitoring digital communications on a wide scale and has been doing so for years. The clearest example were the leaks by Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who fled to Russia during the Obama years.