Watching the Watchers: If You Are Stopped by ICE, Your Biometric Data Will Be Held for a Generation

​Robert Frommer, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, tells the harrowing story of George Retes, a U.S. citizen and Army veteran of the Iraq War, who was stopped in his car during an immigration sweep.

He was on his way to work when he encountered an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) roadblock. A melee broke out between protesters and ICE agents. Retes’s car was engulfed in tear gas.

The Institute for Justice reports that agents smashed Retes’s car window, dragged him out, and forced him to the ground with knees on his neck and back – even though he was not resisting.

Despite Retes presenting proof of his citizenship, ICE agents detained him for three days without charges, strip-searched him, and forced him to provide DNA samples. He was not allowed to call a lawyer or given a hearing before a judge. Because Reyes was held incommunicado, his family was left to frantically search for him.

Writing in MSN, Frommer explores what happens to the biometric data ICE collected on Reyes.

“In addition to our DNA, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has recently and quietly authorized ICE officers to forcibly collect and retain intimate identifiers: our fingerprints and digital images of our faces. Combined with other technologies, the department is creating a general warrant for our persons, the kind of abuse that ignited the American Revolution.

“A DHS document, meant to ensure our privacy, lays out the facts. An app called Mobile Fortify allows ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers to photograph and scan anyone they ‘encounter’ in the field, regardless of citizenship or immigration status. If there isn’t a photo match, officers can collect people’s fingerprints, which are then checked against DHS biometric records. Once DHS has that sensitive data, the app feeds it into CBP’s Automated Targeting System – an enormous watch list that merges border records, passport photos and prior ‘encounter’ images. CBP retains every nonmatch photograph for 15 years, meaning that even if you’re an American citizen mistakenly stopped on the street, the government has your biometric records for (almost) a generation.”
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Congress should investigate and debate this retention of Americans’ biometric records before reauthorizing a single surveillance authority. And PPSA is hopeful that ICE will be forced to explain its unconstitutional detention of George Reyes when it faces his lawsuit under the Federal Torts Claim Act.

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