For several months, ICE (immigration and customs immigration and customs) agents would have mobile Fortify, an application installed on their service smartphones, capable of identifying a person in real time from a simple photo of their face or a contactless digital footprint. This tool would now be integrated into the daily operations of entertainment and removal operations (ERO), the ICE branch responsible for arrests and evictions.
Originally, the biometric technologies of the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) aimed to secure the entry points of the territory, airports, ports, border posts. The service Verification Service, for example, makes it possible to verify the identity of travelers on arrival on American soil by facial recognition. The IDDER base stores fingerprints, faces and other data of more than 270 million individuals.
From now on, an agent can point his smartphone to a face or hand in the street, instantly transmit the capture to the server, and obtain a correspondence in a few seconds. This new use is not trivial, it is no longer a question of controlling an entry point, but of identifying a person in any place, without transparency, without explicit judicial mandate, and in an uncertain legal framework.
Interconnected biometric architecture
The system is first based on IDER (Automated Biometric Identification System), the main DHS biometric database which centralizes the fingerprints, faces and migratory data. Hart (Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology) is being deployed and represents the evolution of IDDER, by integrating other traits such as IRIS or the approach. The Verification Service Traveler, used at the borders, is also mobilized. Finally, the analytical platforms such as those of Palantir, coupled with the Integrated Database enhancement, allow crossed correlations with geolocalized, social or financial information. This architecture fuels Mobile Fortify, transforming each agent into a mobile access point to the entire federal security infrastructure.
Discreet but invasive uses
According to the internal documents consulted by 404 Media, Mobile Fortify allows mobile use in “training” or operational mode, in contexts as varied as public transport, residential districts, or even demonstrations.
These deployments would not be simple tests but are part of a wider strategy, which combines the use of artificial intelligence, facial recognition, geolocation and file crossings. In June, the ICE published a call for tenders evoking a future system capable of monitoring up to a million profiles simultaneously.
Uncertain legality, an absent framework
The fundamental problem posed by Mobile Fortify is that no law would have explicitly authorized its use in the context of the interior police. Facial recognition tools at the border are based on the implicit consent of the traveler, which is no longer the case here.
In the state, no public directive specifies the conditions for the triggering of a biometric scan, the duration of data storage, the targeted populations, the dispute mechanisms of an erroneous identification, or even the audit methods.
Proven technical and security risks
The DHS itself recognized the low reliability of facial recognition in a February 2025 audit. Matching errors are frequent, especially for racialized people. Cases of abusive arrests based on false positives are also documented.
In addition, the cybersecurity flaws are serious, an audit of September 2024 reveals that 73 % of the mobiles ICE did not have the required security parameters. Several devices were connected to unauthorized networks abroad and unsecured applications from China or Russia were installed. Finally, 30 % of the phones put in the rebuilding had not been properly purged of their biometric data.
A loss, theft or an attack on these terminals could expose the personal data of scanned individuals, sometimes without their consent.
Towards normalization of mobile biometric monitoring?
Beyond the American case, Mobile Fortify illustrates a change of scale. Mobile biometrics is no longer an extra tool but becomes structural, and potentially omnipresent. Ice has already exported its know-how via the BitMap program, providing foreign police forces interconnected mobile collection tools with American bases.
This precedent asks many questions because without legislative supervision, and democratic debate, technological evolution risks preceding any legal reflection. Especially since if this evolution seems distant in Europe, it could inspire, or justify, similar policies in other democracies, which could then decide to take it.
