ICE seeks contractors to scour social media for leads

"US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is seeking contractors to trawl social media and other open-source data for potential immigration enforcement leads, assuming public posts can yield actionable intelligence. A contract opportunity published on Thursday by ICE states that the Homeland Security component is seeking about 30 contractors to perform investigations and analysis of open-source intelligence from the web, which solicitation documents suggest will largely focus on social media platforms."

""Previous approaches to targeting individuals for enforcement action which have not incorporated open web sources and social media information, have had limited success," ICE continued. "The individuals targeted for enforcement action purposely employ countermeasures to inhibit ICE's ability to locate them." In other words, people in a country illegally tend to keep their heads down so as not to attract attention."

"One thing's for sure - whoever is drawing up solicitation documents for the contract isn't exactly up on the state of social media. Solicitation documents included with the contracting opportunity include mention of such popular social media sites as Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, X, Reddit, and the like, but also mention the need for investigators to trawl Google+ to look for leads."

ICE seeks about 30 contractors to investigate and analyze open-source intelligence from the web, with a large emphasis on social media platforms. The contractor scope includes publicly available social media, commercial and law enforcement databases, and deep web and darknet sources. ICE stated that previous approaches excluding open web and social media had limited success because targeted individuals employ countermeasures to avoid detection. The solicitation lists platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, X, and Reddit, and also references Google+. The agency did not respond to inquiries.

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