Dems wave hands, stomp feet about ICE using mobile face recognition app

A group of senators has penned a sternly-worded letter to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) saying that they're very worried about the agency's use of facial recognition in its mission to cleanse the nation of immigrants with improper documents.  Seven Democratic senators, led by Senator Edward Markey (D-MA), …

[Dan 55]

Your tax dollars at work

the app has access to more than 200 million images and is able to return data including a person's name, birthdate, nationality, and any dealings with the US immigration system if they aren't a US citizen. The app reportedly also has the ability to capture a fingerprint from a photograph, which can then be run against DHS and Department of State records. Queries can also be performed to connect an identified individual to other people, vehicles, addresses, phone numbers, and firearm ownership, among other data points.

And that's why Doge were scraping every government database they could get their hands on.

[IGotOut]

Yeah, good luck.

Now that Trumps private political army (along with the National Guard), have the power to any dammed thing they want, without consequence, do you think they will take any notice?

[Michael Hoffmann]

Pathetic

If Democrats were serious they would send a STRONGLY WORDED angry letter!

Milquetoasts!

[Joe W]

Re: Pathetic

Yeah, well, what else can they legally do - it's not like half of the judges approve of everything Trump does and the other half are just ignored. Wonderful system, that.

Shame. Used to like visiting the US, but there's no way I'll try and gamble not being detained / deported / sold to some South American country on entry.

There are so many place I still want to visit, so many places I want to visit again. But even subtracting the places currently unwise to vist from all the places available should leave enough new places to visit until the end of my life.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Pathetic

Too late now but they could have done some succession planning a while back .

[FuzzyTheBear]

Frankly , i don't get it.

What are Americans waiting for to get rid of Trump and his circus ?

Christmas ? Their inaction facing the dictator speaks volumes.

Maybe he was right and Americans want a dictator.

[Dan 55]

Re: Frankly , i don't get it.

Trump's net approval rating is -7.3, that doesn't indicate a broad disapproval across society.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Frankly , i don't get it.

Right now he's visiting Britain, where Starmer has a net approval of -44 so that, er, trumps Trump's.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Frankly , i don't get it.

At this point they need to pick up arms and go full civil war, which is something no one (especially the left) wants to do. Also because they will lose quite fast against the Army. Weapons are a nice toy but no one wants to go to war. Maybe shoot unarmed people, that's fine.

The new world will be (is being) controlled by 3 dictators. Xi, Putin and Trump. They just need to find who is the Alpha, because they all believe they are the Alpha now.

[Dan 55]

Re: Frankly , i don't get it.

At this point they need to pick up arms and go full civil war, which is something no one (especially the left) wants to do. Also because they will lose quite fast against the Army. Weapons are a nice toy but no one wants to go to war. Maybe shoot unarmed people, that's fine.

Their politics has failed, nobody can think of a way to turn this around least of all the Democrats, the only solution is for them to follow the diet of violent films and TV they've been excreting for decades and mete out righteous justice with freely available bang sticks until there's a winner. Deep down it's what they really want to do anyway, they just need to get it out of their system.

[Michael Hoffmann]

Re: Frankly , i don't get it.

One problem mentioned before is that most of the weapons in private hands are also owned by the ones most in favour of this regime.

The leftist/liberal/progressive/even-just-centrist/independent side is hopelessly outgunnned.

[Anonymous Coward]

concerns about bias, inaccuracy

Bias? That is a bonus for the masked ICE men!

Legal Eagle: Supreme Court Just Legalized Racial Profiling

[Ken Y-N]

False positives is a feature, not a bug.

[b1k3rdude]

So Agent Orange = Herr H1tler and ICE = Gestapo...

[Anonymous Coward]

“ that the tech be reigned in until it gets better.”

Shouldn’t that be “reined in”?

[Dan 55]

Re: “ that the tech be reigned in until it gets better.”

Not the worst crime against the King's English that has been committed on this website.

[Androgynous Cow Herd]

Re: “ that the tech be reigned in until it gets better.”

nop ...it's "Rained in"

[Anonymous Coward]

"A group of senators has penned a sternly-worded letter to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) saying that they're very worried about the agency's use of facial recognition in its mission to cleanse the nation of immigrants with improper documents. "

Even immigrants with proper documents are being removed.

"At least one of the Korean workers swept up in a huge immigration raid on a Hyundai Motor factory site in Georgia last week was living and working legally in the US, according to an internal federal government document obtained by the Guardian."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/10/hyundai-factory-ice-raid-legal-visa

[Anonymous Coward]

"Not much is known about ICE's Mobile Fortify app outside of what's been discovered and reported by 404 Media, which first broke the story of the app's existence, and that's concerning to the Senators."

ICE are hiring. It would only take someone with a modicum of intelligence to sign up, obtain app, and pass it on to the reversing community who I'm sure would /love/ to have a crack at it.

I'm shocked, /shocked/, okay not at all shocked that nobody in office has considered this yet.

[Anonymous Coward]

A bit late

"A group of senators has penned a sternly-worded letter to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) saying that they're very worried about the agency's use of facial recognition in its mission to cleanse the nation of immigrants with improper documents."

Where was the concern over the open border under Biden? Crying because Trump is cleaning up their huge mess is insane

[Casca]

Re: A bit late

Oh look. Whataboutism from codejunky. Surely you are not defending trump...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: A bit late

@Casca

"Oh look. Whataboutism from codejunky. Surely you are not defending trump..."

I was going to ignore your usual trolling but realised some people really do get stuck on the tribal nonsense and forget to consider what can actually be done. The dems had an open border, invited illegals to their 'sanctuary cities', argued to defund the police, allowed riots and run on the basis of protecting criminals because Trump.

We have seen judges hiding illegals and even helping illegals that go on to commit further crimes avoid ICE agents. There is a huge mess of foreign criminal gangs running around in the US and the dems keep trying to protect them.

This isnt whataboutism, this is the reason ICE have been given such broad permission to clean up the mistake of the previous 4 years and battle against the criminal supporters enabling them! The simple answer would be to help deport illegals. Even if they wanted to hold on to some lefty dream of letting illegals come in, surely deporting those who commit crimes shouldnt be welcome?

Fight deporting criminals and ICE has to work harder to deport these criminals. Help ICE remove criminals and they dont need to use tougher measures.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: A bit late

In The Land of the Free even codejunky has a place.

(Under a stone in a dark cave?)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: A bit late

Biden 46 expelled 4.6 million immigrants, when Trump 45 expelled only 2.1.

Get your figures straight!

[ecofeco]

Dems?

You mean the guys who were voted OUT of power, across ALL three branches, aren't doing anything?

Weird take to think they CAN do anything. As much as many of us wish they could. But they don't hold power right now.

[Dan 55]

Re: Dems?

The Democrats have found someone who is in danger of getting wide support from people who are disillusioned with the current state of politics and winning the NY mayor race (Mamdani), so of course they're not supporting him. Instead their current plan appears to be act as a leaderless party sitting on their hands until November next year then hope they're voted for.

What they really should be doing is looking for the Mamdamis, the AOCs, the Crocketts all over the US and using them to win support from voters everywhere. They shouldn't be beholden to the dinosaurs that don't want to rock the boat because that means their donations might go down a bit.

[Scoured Frisbee]

Fingerprints?

> The app reportedly also has the ability to capture a fingerprint from a photograph,

Should we understand that the agents photographing protesters are somehow collecting their fingerprints from the images? Or does this statement just mean they are "fingerprinting" the images of individuals to protect privacy of citizens when crossing agency boundaries?

I was assuming the latter but the senators' letter implies that the tool might be picking up fingerprints from hand images with sufficient definition to search a fingerprint database, which strikes me as rather optimistic but I guess they at least see it as a possibility. It would be interesting to learn how this is being done, if it is.