US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is shopping for commercial ad tech and big data tools to power its investigations, according to a request for information posted Friday in the Federal Register. The filing marks the first time ICE has explicitly referenced "ad tech" in federal procurement documents, signaling how tools built for digital advertising are crossing into law enforcement surveillance. It comes as privacy advocates sound alarms over government agencies buying location data that would otherwise require warrants.
Federal immigration enforcement just sent a clear signal to the ad tech industry: your surveillance tools are exactly what we need. ICE's Friday filing in the Federal Register doesn't mince words - the agency wants to know what "commercial Big Data and Ad Tech" products can "directly support investigations activities."
The timing is striking. As ICE faces scrutiny over enforcement tactics following a fatal shooting in Minneapolis, the agency is quietly expanding its technological arsenal. The request marks a watershed moment - it's the first time the term "ad tech" has surfaced in any ICE procurement document, contract solicitation, or justification in the Federal Register, according to searches by Wired.
What ICE is really asking for becomes clearer when you look at what it already uses. The agency says it's "working with increasing volumes of criminal, civil, and regulatory, administrative documentation from numerous internal and external sources." Translation: ICE is drowning in data and needs better tools to make sense of it all.
The filing specifically mentions "Ad Tech compliant and location data services available to federal investigative and operational entities." But here's where it gets vague - ICE doesn't spell out which regulations or privacy standards would apply, nor does it name specific vendors it's eyeing. The lack of detail is telling. It suggests ICE is casting a wide net, surveying what's available before committing to specific technologies.
ICE already has a robust surveillance infrastructure built on commercial tools. The agency maintains a contract with Palantir for its Gotham investigative platform, customized for ICE as the "Investigative Case Management" system. Within that ecosystem lives FALCON, a tool that lets agents "store, search, analyze, and visualize volumes of existing information" about investigations, according to .
