ICE to keep an eye on your eyes under $25M biometric scanner deal

public sector

And you thought a face recognition app was intrusive?

If you thought US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s widespread use of face recognition apps was a privacy violation, you’re about to get eye-rate over a new $25 million contract.

According to a largely unreported contract summary published last week by ICE parent agency the Department of Homeland Security, US immigration cops have doled out about $25.1 million to a company called Bi2 Technologies for 1,570 biometric recognition devices able to identify people through fingerprints, iris scans, and facial recognition.

Additional procurement data indicates that the devices can be used in the field in both mobile and stationary configurations, and they provide ICE agents with access to Bi2’s Inmate Recognition and Identification System (IRIS), which matches biometrics to a database of more than five million booking, arrest, and incarceration records from 47 US states. The Bi2 system is also able to access driver’s license and vehicle plate info.

The deal was made without seeking any competing bids, and ICE justified the sole-source acquisition by pointing not only to Bi2’s capabilities being “unmatched by any competitor,” but also to a contract from last year in which it paid the company $4.6 million for what now appears to have been a one-year trial run of its technology on a much smaller scale.

Per the FY 2025 contract, which expires at the end of this coming September, ICE got similar access to the IRIS database and mobile/stationary biometric scanning technology as this year’s award, but only 200 devices were deployed across the US. With the addition of this contract, 1,770 of the devices could now be on American streets by the end of May 2027.

While the Bi2 contracts have yet to cause a stir on the level of other ICE biometric surveillance technologies, the widespread deployment of eyeball scanners linked to law enforcement databases and other forms of government documentation could end up stirring up more controversy.

Senate Democrats have been railing against ICE’s use of biometric identification technology like Mobile Fortify, an app reportedly used by DHS under the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement push to identify people suspected of immigration violations and, potentially, protesters.

In a letter last September, senators demanded ICE immediately cease using Mobile Fortify over concerns that the app could be inaccurate, biased, and might have a chilling effect on the legal expression of protected civil rights in the US.

Neither ICE nor DHS responded to questions for this story. ®