ICE Awards $9.2 Million Facial Recognition Contract to Clearview AI

Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracted Clearview AI for $9.2 million to expand facial recognition surveillance capabilities, ostensibly for child exploitation investigations and officer ‘assault’ cases. ICE has already spent $3.7 million of the contract. Clearview AI’s technology scrapes billions of photos from social media and the internet without consent to build facial recognition databases, raising profound privacy and civil liberties concerns. The contract enables mass surveillance of immigrant communities and protesters, with minimal oversight or legal constraints on how the technology will be used. Combined with ICE’s elimination of arrest documentation requirements announced the same day, this creates infrastructure for arbitrary immigration enforcement targeting based on facial recognition with no requirement to justify arrests. Privacy advocates warn this technology could be weaponized for political surveillance beyond immigration enforcement.