Source link : https://las-vegas-news.com/privacy-under-fire-ices-facial-recognition-push-on-american-streets/
Agents Capture Faces in Everyday Encounters (Image Credits: Unsplash)
Federal immigration agents scanned faces with smartphones during operations in cities such as Minneapolis, Chicago, and Portland, Maine, fueling debates over privacy rights and government overreach.
Agents Capture Faces in Everyday Encounters
Last fall in Aurora, a Chicago suburb, ICE agents stopped two young men on bicycles. One agent held his phone to their faces and asked, “Can you do facial?” while directing them to look into the screen. Similar scenes unfolded in Forest Lake, Minnesota, where agents confronted a man about his citizenship and instructed him to remove his hood for a scan.
Lawyer Steven Young observed agents in Minneapolis on January 21 leaning into car windows at a checkpoint to photograph occupants from a distance. Witnesses reported agents photographing parents at bus stops, neighbors trailing ICE vehicles, and even individuals walking dogs. Retired Marine Skye described sounds of “click, click, click” from an agent’s phone as he captured her image after she followed an enforcement vehicle. These incidents, verified through videos and firsthand accounts, marked a shift toward proactive biometric collection on public streets.
Smartphone Apps and Advanced Tools Drive the Shift
The Department of Homeland Security introduced the Mobile Fortify app last year, enabling agents to scan faces and match them against databases in seconds. Internal documents revealed the app…
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Author : Matthias Binder
Publish date : 2026-02-06 22:10:00
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