ICE and CBP Agents Are Scanning Faces on the Street to Verify Citizenship
59 comments
·October 29, 2025fabian2k
RajT88
I think Family guy had a gag about this...
stronglikedan
that has nothing to do with this
fabian2k
Of course it has. They're checking people that look "foreign".
jazzyjackson
Biometrics are more protected in IL than an other states as well. Facebook settled a big lawsuit just for automatically tagging people (actually the suit was about storing the biometric face data at all without consent)
downrightmike
People can look identical, that's the reason we started using finger prints. Faces are not unique.
UniverseHacker
Don’t fall for the lie that this is at all about illegal immigration- that is just an excuse for what has become state sponsored KKK style racial terrorism operating completely outside the law. Videos all over the Internet show them violently attacking and terrorizing hispanic looking people with no concern for if they are citizens or not. At the Wilder raid in Idaho they were shooting children with rubber bullets, and zip tying them to watch as they brutally beat their (mostly US citizen) parents in front of them. At the same time you have the administration actively encouraging white immigration from South Africa.
I want my country, freedom, and civil rights back.
elicash
The irony of doing this while covering their own faces
davidw
It's not ironic, it's saying "the rules are for you, not for me, fuck you".
belter
People voted for this...some of them three times...
stronglikedan
That's fine, as long as they aren't making anyone remove face coverings. People are allowed to cover their faces in public places. And we can't tell from this biased article whether they had probable cause to stop anyone that they did.
crooked-v
It's not irony, it's basic conservatism. As per the Frank Wilhoit quote (the composer, not the political scientist):
> Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition... There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
throwaway48476
Not sure it counts as irony. Whoever is able to sell masking to the public as a luxury item will make bank.
elicash
All of the replies to my comment are focusing on the definition of irony.
It's like I'm 12 years old again hearing all my classmates talk about why having spoons when you need a knife isn't "actually" irony.
crooked-v
I think the nitpicking is because the phrasing implies that it's not an intentional choice on the part of the government.
walletdrainer
I have a cashmere balaclava from Rick Owens if high fashion masking is what you’re after
Boris Bidjan Saberi also has hoodies with face coverings
Noumenon72
That's about as ironic as carrying a gun while wearing a bulletproof vest. If the tech exists and works it changes both defense and offense.
barbazoo
Wow this is going downhill fast. I don't have access to the article but I'm assuming this is what Palantir is all about right? Or are we not quite there yet, is this the CBP face scanning they have at border crossings too?
burkaman
It's about this app, they won't tell anyone who developed it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Fortify.
oceansky
I wonder who is storing this data, I would bet Palantir. Possibly Oracle too.
pavel_lishin
Very likely an array of hackers, soon.
ddtaylor
I wonder if Oracle is going to become the next IBM with respect to their Nazi past.
trollbridge
With no consequences whatsoever?
mrbombastic
If you haven’t seen it this video is a dystopian display of this tech in action: https://www.reddit.com/r/EyesOnIce/comments/1ogm1qk/ice_agen...
I am struggling a bit personally with how to grapple with the fact that the career I have chosen has ended up bolstering all the horrible inclinations of those in power. I think we need some kind of tech workers collective and some version of the hippocratic oath to start pushing back against this bullshit.
jimt1234
Asking a "kid" for his ID? Kids aren't supposed to have IDs, much less carry them around. I'm confused as to what the kid was supposed to provide.
jazzyjackson
The lack of safeguarding is shocking. Kids should not be hassled at all much less strip searched without their parents.
visekr
lol - I made something to do the same to ICE. Stores each ICE agent as a visual embedding and creates a database of all sighted agents.
jimmywetnips
thanks awesome. thank you for making this.
Can you go into any detail on what technologies you used? Is there enough differentiating data in their attire to actually match agents? None of them are showing their faces so I wonder how many false positives would occur
yasp
What's your policy for complying with the patchwork of national biometrics laws?
toomuchtodo
Ignore them? Operate outside of US reach. The tubes are global.
micromacrofoot
Any shred of trust that was left in our federal agencies is going straight down the drain.
superkuh
I wonder how soon till the automated license plate reader cameras everywhere start doing this.
keeda
My understanding is that the only thing keeping this from happening is that the data is far more valuable for traffic monitoring than law enforcement. As a trivial example, these cameras can already determine is a vehicle is speeding based on its number plate sightings between any two cameras. They can hence start issuing tickets, no radar or police needed.
However, they've not gone down this path because they are (rightfully) concerned that there would be an instantaneous and severe backlash that could lead to those cameras being banned entirely, which would cripple traffic control.
pyk
This and ezpass readers are already everywhere in cities (even outside toll points) to track movement.
SirFatty
I'm sure it's already happening!
01HNNWZ0MV43FF
For today's ten thousand https://deflock.me
supportengineer
"You're being pulled over because this licence plate is not registered with a valid REAL ID"
JohnMakin
If only it was this bad. REAL ID only proves you were at one point allowed to be here. It doesn't prove you're allowed to be here right now (which can change arbitrarily and at any time apparently)
dgllghr
Fascism is not just knocking at the door, it’s walking into the house. Some want it to come in, and the rest aren’t doing enough to push it back out.
varispeed
I wonder why people downvote. Many western countries now couldn't be more obviously fascist. State responsibilities are being offloaded to multinational corporations, de facto private policing is around the corner, surveillance (digital ID tracking your movements and what you talk about, chat controls and whatnot). It's creeping in and people pretend it's not happening.
dgllghr
I’ve gone from thinking people are oblivious to thinking that people are willing to sacrifice a lot (democracy, individual liberties, food safety, etc.) out of fear, selfishness, and greed. It is surprising with the HN crowd though given how much less innovation and entrepreneurship there is under fascism.
giraffe_lady
I mean they are flashbanging houses, teargassing residential neighborhoods, dragging parents away from their screaming children outside of elementary schools, shooting people, all in chicago right now. The things you mention were serious problems we needed to address 5, 10, 20 years ago. We did not and now we have a very different problem to solve. We will still have to address those things but we have to deal with this first.
snozolli
Many western countries now couldn't be more obviously fascist.
Which ones? This isn't an "I'm just asking" attack, I genuinely want to know which ones you think are obviously fascist.
The absolutely outrageous thing is that apparently they are instructed to ignore all other evidence of citizenship if that app says someone is not a citizen. So even if you have your birth certificate ready, doesn't matter.
This is completely lawless.
From the article:
> He also said “ICE officials have told us that an apparent biometric match by Mobile Fortify is a ‘definitive’ determination of a person’s status and that an ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate—if the app says the person is an alien.