Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to distribute a facial recognition application to potentially more than a thousand local law enforcement agencies across the United States.
The rollout would allow regular police officers to query a database containing hundreds of millions of images to verify a person’s immigration status.
The plans were revealed in an internal Department of Homeland Security document obtained by 404 Media, with the original reporting carried out by journalist Joseph Cox.
Local law enforcement officers would be given access to a version of the tool called “Task Force Module,” which draws on the same underlying technology and database access found in the existing ICE application.
The key difference between the two versions is that Task Force Module would deliver text prompts to officers once the app has completed its identification process.
The facial recognition application in question is called “Mobile Fortify,” which connects to pre-existing DHS databases and incorporates a number of third-party facial recognition products.
Those third-party products may include Clearview AI, a company that has already attracted significant controversy and is currently being paid millions to supply the government with facial recognition technology.
Critics have raised serious concerns about the reliability of the underlying technology, with questions hanging over both its accuracy and the ethical foundations of the businesses supplying it.
The Trump administration has directed billions of dollars toward immigration enforcement efforts, with a substantial portion of that funding flowing directly to ICE and from there to private surveillance companies.
The expansion of this technology inland represents a significant shift from its original deployment context, with DHS having initially repurposed border-crossing technology for broader use less than six months after Trump took office in 2025.
Concerns about oversight are central to the criticism surrounding the rollout, with opponents arguing that deploying a flawed surveillance tool without meaningful checks creates serious risks of abuse by law enforcement officers.
The move extends a pattern of federal agencies equipping local police with powerful surveillance tools that carry little accompanying accountability or transparency regarding how the data is used or stored.