this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2026
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Inside ICE’s Tool to Monitor Phones in Entire Neighborhoods (www.404media.co)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by tonytins@pawb.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
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A social media and phone surveillance system ICE bought access to is designed to monitor a city neighborhood or block for mobile phones, track the movements of those devices and their owners over time, and follow them from their places of work to home or other locations, according to material that describes how the system works obtained by 404 Media.

Commercial location data, in this case acquired from hundreds of millions of phones via a company called Penlink, can be queried without a warrant, according to an internal ICE legal analysis shared with 404 Media. The purchase comes squarely during ICE’s mass deportation effort and continued crackdown on protected speech, alarming civil liberties experts and raising questions on what exactly ICE will use the surveillance system for.

“This is a very dangerous tool in the hands of an out-of-control agency. This granular location information paints a detailed picture of who we are, where we go, and who we spend time with,” Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy project director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told 404 Media.

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[–] Taldan@lemmy.world 9 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

The choice does exist, but it gets harder and harder to go without a phone

Many jobs expect us to be available at all hours. Younger generations cannot navigate without maps. Phones are also the primary way we record/observe ICE. They're also our calendar/organizer, notebook, and many other things

Sure, we can have an independent GPS, camera, calendar, and notepad, but the barrier keeps getting higher

We need to develop counter measures, and long-term pass strong laws banning this level of government surveillance

[–] RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago

Public payphones in the streets and emergency phones alongside highways have also been removed (at least in my country). So yeah, our society expects us to have our own phones with us whenever we're away from home.