ICE Doesn’t Want You To Know Why They Bought a Phone Cracking System

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is quietly building up its ability to spy on Americans’ phones. Earlier this month, the agency activated a $2 million contract with Paragon, a service that offers the ability to remotely hack into someone’s phone. Last week, ICE entered into an $11 million contract for Cellebrite devices, which allow agents to break into a locked phone in their physical possession.

And they don’t want you to know why. The justification for the no-bid contract states that ICE’s Cyber Crimes Center “has a need for Universal Forensic Extraction Devices (UFEDs) and related services for investigative purposes. Specifically, the Government requires the capability to perform logical, file system, physical, and password data extraction for mobile electronic devices.”

Every other substantive paragraph in the document is redacted, to an almost comical degree. “Cellebrite’s unique capabilities are that they are the only brand product/service that ██████████,” read one paragraph. “Cellebrite remains the most effective solution for ██████████,” reads another.

The Cyber Crimes Center is attached to Homeland Security Investigations, the section of ICE that handles organized crime rather than day-to-day deportations.

Cellebrite is not keen on revealing its capabilities; in a leaked training video, Cellebrite representatives asked police to keep the use of their devices “as hush hush as possible.” But ICE’s justification even censors details about competing products the agency looked at. “Similarly, ██████████ offers ██████████. None of these tools provide ██████████ needed to handle ██████████,” the document reads.

Neither ICE nor Cellebrite have responded to requests for comment about the contract. 

“Cellebrite is not an offensive cyber-technology company, and we do not produce technology solutions that support surveillance or monitoring efforts,” Cellebrite spokeswoman Jackie Labrecque told Reason last year. “Hacking is the gaining of unauthorized access to data in a system or computer. Using this terminology related to our products is inaccurate, since a search warrant is required to legally access a device’s data.”

Last week, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) also announced its intent to purchase Cellebrite software because “electronic devices are often encountered by CBP when investigating or interdicting violators or suspected violators of United States laws pursuant to its statutory mission. The presence of advanced encryption and other security features on such devices requires the use of specialized digital forensic tools to acquire evidence contained within.”

In addition to seizing electronics during criminal investigations, CBP has aggressively asserted its right to search travelers’ phones at their discretion.

Meanwhile, ICE has been massively expanding its domestic surveillance capabilities without a public explanation. According to documents obtained by 404 Media over the past few months, ICE has been accessing a nationwide database of insurance claims and a network of license plate cameras for reasons unknown.

Last week, the surveillance contractor Palantir was scheduled to deliver a prototype of a “near real-time” tracking system for immigrants known as ImmigrationOS. If history is any guide, any capabilities that the government builds up in one area will soon be used in others. And with no transparency on ICE’s surveillance dragnet, there’s no way to tell what other purposes it’s being turned towards.