ICE asks companies which “ad tech and big data” tools can be used in investigations

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is asking companies to provide information about “commercial big data and advertising technology” products that would “directly support investigative activities,” according to the information request published Friday in the Federal Register, the U.S. government’s official journal for agency notices, rulemaking and other public filings.

The post says ICE is “working with increasing amounts of criminal, civil, regulatory and administrative documents from many internal and external sources.” The agency is positioning the request as a way to survey currently available tools to help manage and analyze information held by ICE, saying it is looking at “existing and emerging” products that are “comparable to providers of big investigative data and legal/risk analytics.”

Additionally, the entry says, “The government seeks to understand the current status of Ad Tech-compliant location data services available to Federal investigative and operational entities, taking into account regulatory constraints and privacy expectations for support investigative activities.” The filing offers few details beyond this broad description: It does not outline the regulations or privacy standards that will apply, nor does it mention any specific services or suppliers of “big data and ad tech” services that ICE is interested in.

This entry appears to be the first time the term “ad tech” has appeared in a request for information, contract solicitation, or contract justification that ICE has published in the Federal Register, according to searches conducted by WIRED. The request highlights how tools originally developed for digital advertising and other commercial purposes are increasingly being considered for use by the government for law enforcement and surveillance.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment from WIRED.

ICE previously used the term “big data” in justifying a contract for Palantir to provide “unlimited operations and maintenance support for the FALCON system” and unlimited licenses to “Palantir Gotham.” Gotham is Palantir’s law enforcement-ready investigation tool. The company provides a customized version of Gotham to ICE known as the Investigative Case Management system. FALCON is a tool within the custom Palantir system that ICE uses to “store, search, analyze, and visualize large amounts of existing information” about current and past investigations.

ICE has also previously purchased products that provide mobile location data, which is sometimes among the information provided by companies that buy and sell aggregated information for online advertising. Advertising technology data can include details about the device and apps a person uses, where they are located, and their browsing activity, among other information.

ICE purchased commercial location data obtained from Webloc, a tool sold by Penlink. Webloc allows the user to collect information about mobile phones used in a certain area during a certain period of time. Users have the ability to filter the devices displayed based on criteria such as whether their location was collected via “GPS, WiFi, or IP address” or through their “Apple and Android advertising IDs,” 404 Media reports.

In several recent years, ICE has also purchased licenses to use Venntel, a data broker and subsidiary of Gravy Analytics that collects and sells consumer location data. In a Federal Register entry that entered into a contract with Venntel last year, ICE said its Enforcement and Removal Operations Division used the company’s software to “access and obtain information to accurately identify digital devices.”

The FTC alleged in 2024 that Venntel sold sensitive consumer location data without obtaining proper consent from people for business and government purposes. The FTC later barred Gravy Analytics and Venntel “from selling, disclosing, or using sensitive location data except in limited national security or law enforcement circumstances.” (Gravy Analytics neither admitted nor denied any of the allegations made by the FTC.)