The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency is rapidly enhancing its online surveillance capabilities, potentially tracking millions of web users. According to federal records revealed by The Lever, ICE is investing $5.7 million in Zignal Labs, an AI-powered social media monitoring platform.
Zignal Labs’ ‘real-time intelligence’ platform can analyze vast amounts of publicly available data, including social media posts, using machine learning and computer vision. The system processes over 8 billion posts daily in 100 languages, creating ‘curated detection feeds’ for ICE to identify individuals for potential deportation.
The platform’s capabilities include analyzing geolocated images and videos, providing alerts to operators. For instance, Zignal Labs identified operators in a Telegram video from Gaza, pinpointing their location based on visual cues in the footage. This suggests ICE could potentially track someone’s location from social media content.
ICE secured the Zignal Labs contract through Carahsoft, a government IT solutions provider. Zignal Labs has previously collaborated with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Source: The Verge