Trump Administration Gives ICE Access to Health Records and Facial Recognition in Massive Surveillance Expansion

A Billion-Pound Tech Spree

ICE has dramatically ramped up its technology spending under Trump, procuring artificial intelligence-powered social media monitoring, phone location tracking, drones, iris scanners, and so-called 'skip-tracing' services typically used by debt collectors and bounty hunters. The agency awarded contracts worth a potential £1 billion for skip-tracing alone, with deals running through 2027, according to The Intercept.

One of the more alarming purchases was a £3.8 million contract in September with Clearview AI, a company that has built a database of 30 billion images scraped from across the internet. The contract specified that the facial recognition technology would be used for investigations into assaults against law enforcement officers, not immigration enforcement. The move has drawn concern from privacy advocates, who argue ICE is quietly expanding its remit.

Privacy Act 'Gutted' by Executive Orders

Civil liberties groups have expressed particular alarm over how Trump's executive orders have essentially circumvented the Privacy Act, a 1974 law designed to stop the federal government from creating a centralised database of everyone's information. The law was meant to ensure that data handed over for things like Medicare or Social Security couldn't just be repurposed by other agencies, especially law enforcement.

But ICE has now signed broad data-sharing agreements with the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Department of Health and Human Services. Under its deal with the SSA, ICE can request up to 50,000 records monthly, including addresses, banking details, and contact information. Its agreement with the IRS saw the agency request more than a million records in just four months after it was signed in April.

In October, ICE went even further by rescinding its 2013 policy that had explicitly stated that the agency would not use health eligibility information to carry out immigration enforcement.

'Political Policing of Protesters and Dissidents'

Perhaps most troubling is evidence that ICE wants to use these surveillance tools to monitor Americans who criticise the agency. An August Privacy Impact Assessment published by the Department of Homeland Security revealed ICE plans to use social media surveillance to track 'threats against ICE personnel by members of the public'.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has expanded what counts as a 'threat' to ICE officials, telling reporters in July that 'violence is anything that threatens them and their safety', That includes filming officers. Matthew Guariglia, a senior policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argues ICE has moved into 'political policing of protesters and dissidents,' Guariglia said.

Oversight Dismantled

Making matters worse, Trump has systematically dismantled the government bodies meant to provide oversight of surveillance programmes. He fired a wave of inspectors general and watchdogs in January, including Sharon Bradford Franklin, who chaired the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an agency created after 9/11 specifically to scrutinise government surveillance.

'It's very troubling, especially when you pair the ramp-up of these capabilities and the increasing exercises of these capabilities with the undermining of independent oversight,' Franklin said. A Financial Times report found that internal privacy safeguards at ICE have been reduced to a 'rubber stamp' process. Several Democratic-led states have fought back by cutting ICE's access to state motor vehicle records.

Why the Surveillance Expansion Matters

The combination of sophisticated surveillance technology and unrestricted access to Americans' private data creates infrastructure that could be used for purposes far beyond immigration enforcement. Once built, these systems don't just disappear when administrations change. They become permanent fixtures that future governments can exploit.

Privacy advocates point out that once you've built a system capable of tracking anyone through health records, tax data, facial recognition, and social media monitoring, the question of who gets targeted becomes dangerously flexible. The technology doesn't care whether it's hunting immigrants or political dissidents; it just does what it's told. And with Trump having dismantled the watchdog bodies meant to prevent abuse, there's precious little standing between ICE's surveillance apparatus and whoever the agency decides to go after next.