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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
by fabian2k 1y ago
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.
- downrightmike 1y agoPeople can look identical, that's the reason we started using finger prints. Faces are not unique.
- qingcharles 1y agoMy friend (who has an identical twin) was joking about scanning himself into Cameo mode on Sora and making some goofy videos and saying they were his brother.
- burkaman 1y agoAlso, this app uses photos from a combination of government databases, but there are millions of citizens without photo ID who won't show up in any of them.
- toomuchtodo 1y agoSocial media datasets are likely in use. https://www.biometricupdate.com/202509/ice-awards-clearview-ai-9-2m-facial-recognition-contract https://www.biometricupdate.com/202509/ice-awards-clearview-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearview_AI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearview_AI
- krapp 1y agoThere is no scientific proof that fingerprints are unique, either. Like a lot of forensic science, it's just accepted wisdom.
- more_corn 1y agoI think the scientific consensus is that they are NOT unique. I seem to recall there’s something like a one in five million chance of collision. (Recalling from memory so please verify, I recall thinking that in a large city there’s likely to be another person who’s fingerprints could be mistaken for yours)
- tracker1 1y agoIIRC, someone was accused and arrested for murder who lived across the country and couldn't have possibly committed the crime based on fingerprint match.
- yubblegum 1y agoA book to read on the history of surveillance technology, starting with "pass papers" for slaves to finger prints: The Soft Cage - Surveillance in America: From Slavery to the War on Terror, Christian Parenti, 2003 https://archive.org/details/softcagesurveill0000pare https://archive.org/details/softcagesurveill0000pare
- jazzyjackson 1y agoBiometrics 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)
- qingcharles 1y agoThey are. BIPA is top rate. I looked at the statute, which excludes Illinois state and local government entities, but does not talk of federal bodies. I don't know enough about the supremacy of federal statutes to know how that works, and most discussions note that the statute excludes "the government" which is not totally accurate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometric_Information_Privacy_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometric_Information_Privacy_...
- evanjrowley 1y agoLegal action against this is going to be a tough, possibly unfeasable battle. Whatever the laws are, they probably contain exceptions for the use of biometrics for law enforcement purposes. In terms of court precedent, biometrics are not protected by the 4th amendment, because your face is not considered a secret that the government could compel you to reveal.
- sowbug 1y agoQuestion for a future (2026?) dystopia: if our faces aren't secret or private for 4A/5A purposes, can we start making them secret/private by walking around in public with a balaclava? New norms go both ways.
- gorbachev 1y ago> This is completely lawless. They don't give a **. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/the-rule-of-law-is-dead-in-the-us/ https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/the-rule-of-law-i...
- jaco6 1y agoBirth certificates and driver's licenses can be and are routinely faked by everyone from high school students to foreign agents. Faces cannot be faked.
- hamdingers 1y agoYou're making the unreasonable assumption of good faith on the part of the app developers. It could be designed to accurately distinguish citizens from noncitizens, or it could be connected to a database of online agitators, or picking out facial features of targeted minorities without regard to their personal identity, or some combination of all of these and worse. You don't know.
- acdha 1y agoFaces can’t be easily be “faked” in person but they can definitely be misrecognized or recognized correctly against mistagged data. Anything like this needs to be designed with the assumption that errors will be frequent enough that the finding has to be validated before doing something serious.
- duxup 1y agoI think ICE is in fact setup / groomed to be ... lawless. Just thugs for the federal government.
- dragonwriter 1y agoIts not just ICE, its clear Trump intent for law enforcement (and not just federal) from even very early on in his first term, where a highlighted priority was terminating then-active federal enforcement actions against state law enforcement agencies for violations of civil rights. Lawless “law enforcement” has been one of the most consistent overt priorities Trump has had.
- duxup 1y agoI think ICE's expansion + their massive legal discretion that goes beyond typical law enforcement is just he perfect place to put thugs. ICE by design is just the spot to have those folks, sadly.
- conception 1y agoAlso they operate in the constitution free zone of 100 miles from a border.
- acdha 1y agoYes, but ICE has been fast and loose with the law for a long time so they’re starting without something like the military’s culture about lawful orders, appropriate use of force, etc. As in so many areas, past presidents ignoring the problem left it ready for scaled up abuse.
- dragonwriter 1y agoICE leadership below the top level is currently being purged, and apparently replaced with officials transferred from Border Patrol, because ICE’s approach and culture is more targeted and criminality based, and many of the biggest abuses so far in the immigration crackdown blamed on “ICE” have actually been carried out by Border Patrol (its not a coincidence that much of the current controversy in Chicago centers around thhe regional Border Patrol commander.) While ICE is being massively scaled up with the intent that you describe, its not unique in kind or even the worst by degree of the agencies involved in terms of either historic or current lawlessness. It's just the one with the public mission most in line with the propaganda cover chosen for Trump's totalitarian efforts.
- lawn 1y ago> the person is an alien The dehumanizing language is absolutely disgusting and it's use is an important milestone towards genocide.
- throw-the-towel 1y agoThis particular word has been in official use for ages. I agree that it's disgusting.
- clawr 1y agoAlien has been the legal term since the beginning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts
- robocat 1y agoIt is often the case that a "good" word is used, and then the derogatory secondary meanings grow. Years ago special needs was a fairly safe term, yet now "speshul" definitely has different tone. I'm sure you know if many other examples (I can think of heaps). I predict that "delayed" will become derogatory. I think that banning words is literally dumb. I am bit older and went through the Politically Correct putsh. Disclaimer: I'm a lefty.
- willis936 1y agoI don't think it's a coincidence that identity masking of deputies starts happening the moment that deputies start doing illegal things. They are jumping to the very end of "what can we do if we remove every means of accountability, present or future?"
- xtracto 1y agoAt this point, the US is a failed democracy and a facist state. I would definitely advice people from other countries to leave ASAP. The facist American government is even sending their dissident citizens to detention camps in Africa . Good luck to Americans that cannot go somewhere else.
- troyvit 1y agoCops be cops: https://denverite.com/2025/10/27/bow-mar-flock-cameras-accusation/ https://denverite.com/2025/10/27/bow-mar-flock-cameras-accus... In that case it's Bow Mar, a small town in Colorado, relying on flock cameras to issue tickets for petty theft. We as a society just aren't capable of using these toys right.
- potato3732842 1y agoI'd say it's nice to see that particular demographic at the business end of this 1984 crap since they're usually the ones pushing it but I don't think the rest of them are smart enough to have the "that could be me" reaction.
- wahnfrieden 1y agoA YC investment btw
- nitwit005 1y agoI'm somewhat morbidly curious how many citizens we're going to deport to random countries. It happened fairly often before this administration.
- IAmGraydon 1y agoCan you give me some specific examples of deported citizens?
- nitwit005 1y agoYou can check the wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_Americans_from_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_Americans_from_...
- deepfriedchokes 1y agoLots of lawsuits forthcoming. Who’s going to pay for them? We are.