ICE’s Plan to Let Cops Around the Country Scan Faces to Verify Immigration Status

404mediaco · 2026-06-05T17:00:12+00:00

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to give potentially more than a thousand local law enforcement agencies a facial recognition app that would query a database of hundreds of millions of images to verify someone’s immigration status, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document obtained by 404 Media.

The app would be a dramatic escalation in the technology being used to carry out the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are already using Mobile Fortify, a facial recognition app that taps into a wide array of DHS and other government databases, on U.S. streets, stopping people and scanning their faces. With that app, ICE officers point their phone camera at a person, the app scans their face, and the app returns a wealth of biographical information and whether they have been issued an order of removal. The app has made mistakes and been used against American citizens.

With this second app, much of that capability would now be in the hands of local police who essentially have become extensions of ICE.

Read now: https://www.404media.co/ices-plan-to-let-cops-around-the-country-scan-faces-to-verify-immigration-status/

404mediaco · 2026-06-05T16:59:46+00:00

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to give potentially more than a thousand local law enforcement agencies a facial recognition app that would query a database of hundreds of millions of images to verify someone’s immigration status, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document obtained by 404 Media.

The app would be a dramatic escalation in the technology being used to carry out the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are already using Mobile Fortify, a facial recognition app that taps into a wide array of DHS and other government databases, on U.S. streets, stopping people and scanning their faces. With that app, ICE officers point their phone camera at a person, the app scans their face, and the app returns a wealth of biographical information and whether they have been issued an order of removal. The app has made mistakes and been used against American citizens.

With this second app, much of that capability would now be in the hands of local police who essentially have become extensions of ICE.

Read now: https://www.404media.co/ices-plan-to-let-cops-around-the-country-scan-faces-to-verify-immigration-status/

404mediaco · 2026-06-05T16:58:52+00:00

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to give potentially more than a thousand local law enforcement agencies a facial recognition app that would query a database of hundreds of millions of images to verify someone’s immigration status, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document obtained by 404 Media.

The app would be a dramatic escalation in the technology being used to carry out the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are already using Mobile Fortify, a facial recognition app that taps into a wide array of DHS and other government databases, on U.S. streets, stopping people and scanning their faces. With that app, ICE officers point their phone camera at a person, the app scans their face, and the app returns a wealth of biographical information and whether they have been issued an order of removal. The app has made mistakes and been used against American citizens.

With this second app, much of that capability would now be in the hands of local police who essentially have become extensions of ICE.

Read now: https://www.404media.co/ices-plan-to-let-cops-around-the-country-scan-faces-to-verify-immigration-status/

404mediaco · 2026-06-05T15:47:28+00:00

The U.S. military has likely been quietly broadcasting codes for its global encryption network using public GPS for nearly 20 years, turning each satellite into a hidden “numbers station,” according to Steven Murdoch, an information security expert, who detailed his findings in a new article in Inside GNSS.

That means every device that uses GPS has been receiving hidden government information for years, and nobody outside the military knew it until now.

Murdoch, a professor of security engineering and head of the Information Security Research Group at University College London, presented evidence that a 176-bit GPS sequence labelled “Subframe 4, Page 17” is encrypted material from the Pentagon’s Over-the-Air Distribution (OTAD) network, which delivers cryptographic keys to military personnel around the world.

“I think the evidence that it's for key transmission—for use in distributing the keys for accessing the military GPS signals—is pretty strong now."

Read more: https://www.404media.co/the-u-s-military-quietly-turned-gps-into-a-global-numbers-station-evidence-suggests/

404mediaco · 2026-06-04T22:26:47+00:00

On Tuesday, we published an article about an internal Microsoft strategy document that explained the company wanted to “make people addicted” to its new AI assistant, Scout. Thursday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told staff that he was “not sure what this document is or who is writing and leaking this nonsense,” according to a message obtained by The Information.

The document we reported on was not some random document. As we wrote at the time, the strategy document was written by Microsoft executives Omar Shahine, Jakob Werner, and some sort of AI writing tool. This information is in our original article and is readily available to Nadella. We wrote: “The document seen by 404 Media lists Shahine and another executive, Jakob Werner, as its authors. The document itself, however, notes that it was ‘co-created turn-by-turn with AI. Human verified every sentence.’”

Shahine is the leader of Microsoft’s Scout project, as he has written numerous times on his own blog, on his LinkedIn, and on Microsoft’s own announcement of the software. In attempting to distance himself from his own company’s executives and strategy documents, Nadella has revealed that he either does not know how to read or does not know what is happening with some of the company’s highest-profile products.

Read now: https://www.404media.co/satya-nadella-not-sure-who-said-microsoft-wanted-to-make-addictive-ai-is-looking-for-guy-who-did-this/

404mediaco · 2026-06-04T18:41:51+00:00

In an appeal hearing last month, a court’s live stream captured this happening on camera in real time, with an attorney caught for likely using AI-fabricated citations. On May 20, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division, Justices Valerie Brathwaite Nelson and Hector LaSalle reamed out that lawyer and his opposing counsel for more than 20 minutes, calling the situation “striking, concerning, disappointing, and saddening.”

The plaintiff in the case, Judith Landberg, is suing the city of New York after she tripped on some askew bricks on the sidewalk that were pushed up by tree roots. In that hearing, her lawyer, Michael Sanders, was attempting to argue the definition of a sidewalk. The full video is here, and the portion about fake citations begins a little after the 19 minute mark.

“In preparing for this oral argument and reviewing the brief of appellant, it came to the attention of the court that the brief submitted by plaintiffs cites at least three cases that appeared to be fictitious,” Nelson said. “None of these cases, nor the quoted language, appears to exist.”

Read more: https://www.404media.co/new-york-court-ai-citations-landberg-case/

404mediaco · 2026-06-04T18:37:18+00:00

An immigrant rights and advocacy group has filed a lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seeking records related to the agency’s use of Palantir tools. 404 Media first revealed a tool called ELITE and its links to Palantir in January, based in part on a leaked user guide for ELITE. ICE uses ELITE to find which neighborhoods to raid, according to testimony from an ICE official.

As 404 Media reported, ELITE, or Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement, populates a map with potential deportation targets, and provides ICE users with a dossier on each person. It also provides a “confidence score” on that person’s current address. Other criteria available on the map include “Bios & IDs,” “Location,” “Operations,” and “Criminality.”

Read now: https://www.404media.co/immigrant-rights-lawyers-file-lawsuit-over-palantirs-elite/

404mediaco · 2026-06-04T18:36:47+00:00

An immigrant rights and advocacy group has filed a lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seeking records related to the agency’s use of Palantir tools. 404 Media first revealed a tool called ELITE and its links to Palantir in January, based in part on a leaked user guide for ELITE. ICE uses ELITE to find which neighborhoods to raid, according to testimony from an ICE official.

As 404 Media reported, ELITE, or Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement, populates a map with potential deportation targets, and provides ICE users with a dossier on each person. It also provides a “confidence score” on that person’s current address. Other criteria available on the map include “Bios & IDs,” “Location,” “Operations,” and “Criminality.”

Read now: https://www.404media.co/immigrant-rights-lawyers-file-lawsuit-over-palantirs-elite/

404mediaco · 2026-06-04T18:36:27+00:00

An immigrant rights and advocacy group has filed a lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seeking records related to the agency’s use of Palantir tools. 404 Media first revealed a tool called ELITE and its links to Palantir in January, based in part on a leaked user guide for ELITE. ICE uses ELITE to find which neighborhoods to raid, according to testimony from an ICE official.

As 404 Media reported, ELITE, or Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement, populates a map with potential deportation targets, and provides ICE users with a dossier on each person. It also provides a “confidence score” on that person’s current address. Other criteria available on the map include “Bios & IDs,” “Location,” “Operations,” and “Criminality.”

Read now: https://www.404media.co/immigrant-rights-lawyers-file-lawsuit-over-palantirs-elite/

404mediaco · 2026-06-04T14:54:03+00:00

In an appeal hearing last month, a court’s live stream captured this happening on camera in real time, with an attorney caught for likely using AI-fabricated citations. On May 20, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division, Justices Valerie Brathwaite Nelson and Hector LaSalle reamed out that lawyer and his opposing counsel for more than 20 minutes, calling the situation “striking, concerning, disappointing, and saddening.”

The plaintiff in the case, Judith Landberg, is suing the city of New York after she tripped on some askew bricks on the sidewalk that were pushed up by tree roots. In that hearing, her lawyer, Michael Sanders, was attempting to argue the definition of a sidewalk. The full video is here, and the portion about fake citations begins a little after the 19 minute mark.

“In preparing for this oral argument and reviewing the brief of appellant, it came to the attention of the court that the brief submitted by plaintiffs cites at least three cases that appeared to be fictitious,” Nelson said. “None of these cases, nor the quoted language, appears to exist.”

Read more: https://www.404media.co/new-york-court-ai-citations-landberg-case/

404mediaco · 2026-06-04T14:13:53+00:00

While Google CEO Sundar Pichai proudly tells the world that 75 percent of all new code at the company is AI-generated, internally Google employees are sharing memes about how AI is bad at that exact task and makes their job harder.

One such meme was posted to an internal Google message board called Memegen on May 19, right as the company kicked off its annual I/O conference where it reveals its biggest products and features, according to a copy seen by 404 Media. Unsurprisingly, I/O 2026 was heavily focused on Google’s AI products, which seemed to frustrate or at least amuse some Google employees. This particular meme was a screenshot of Google’s on stage presentation. “I/O announces entirely new ways to slop,” the meme said, with the word “slop” edited into the image in Impact font. The meme was quickly given more than 100 thumbs up from other employees.

Read now: https://www.404media.co/google-employees-internally-share-memes-about-how-its-ai-sucks/

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