How Data is Being Used
Last year, the Trump administration approved the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and increased the reach of data to surveil Americans with tools typically used to target terrorists but now used for mass deportation.
Since handing over a historic $75 billion to ICE, the government has tapped into local databases to extract information on immigration status, place of residence, and tax benefits, for example, to determine individuals for deportation. The government is also looking at DMV records, airline passenger information, keyword locations, and even who people are befriending for data that can translate to more deportations.
At an American Community Media briefing hosted by Executive Director Jaya Padmanabhan on Feb 27th, experts and advocates discussed how data is being used to track civilians and the role played by private entities in supporting this surveillance.
Impact on people
These surveillance tactics have scared people into not signing up for health and other services, for fear that their data will be collected, said Ariel G Ruiz Soto, a Senior Policy Analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. He also pointed out that in several instances, ICE and DHS acted on “bad information.” One consequence is that 2.5 million undocumented immigrants have left the US from December 2025 to early 2026– voluntarily and involuntarily, according to a DHS announcement.
Tech platforms play ‘I Spy‘
ICE now partners with state and local law enforcement agencies through a 287(g) program to “identify and process removable aliens with pending or active criminal charges,” said Soto, adding that the DHS uses an app called WebLock to examine text messages.
Tech giant Palantir’s technology was being used in counter-insurgency, explained Juan Sebastian Pinto, an ex-Palantir employee. ICE recently awarded the company $30 million to build an ImmigrationOS software platform with a real-time tracker to monitor people in the US immigration system. The government isn’t using tech just to arrest people, warned Pinto — it’s now being used to go after ideological targets.
Journalist Jacob (Jake) Ward warned people not to share personal data such as photos on social media because it can expose them to facial recognition technology. ”We now live in a world where our devices hear us,” said Ward, comparing the situation to a panopticon – a prison design where a central guard can observe inmates without them knowing they are being observed.
All forms of biometric data about us are being collected, said Ward, describing an attempt to even record heartbeat data, as each heartbeat is unique. There is tech to find data through WiFi and surveil people in their homes, he added, and companies are also developing legal strategies to present evidence in court while avoiding explicit admission that they used people’s data without consent.
He noted that the president of Signal, Meredith Whittaker, has warned that AI agents are slowly invading our personal data and privacy. She left Google because she recognized that the company could use its huge database of users to manipulate and track people. Whittaker created Signal to protect people and their personal data.
The Role of Tech Companies
The creator of ClearView AI, which compares photos to publicly identified images, told journalist Jake Ward that Americans have ‘willingly’ given the company permission to store their photos. The founder of a drone technology company that can track people in the dark without their knowledge claimed he was a “tech guy,” not a “policy guy.”
However, there are some ways in which to safely integrate AI into society, as Estonia has, said Ward. “In Estonia, you can pay taxes in 90 seconds. The country has achieved this through a decentralized system that enables paperless public-private services.”
Companies that push back against the government’s tech surveillance face consequences, added Ward. When Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei told Pete Hegseth, the Defense Secretary, he would not allow Claude to be used to surveil American citizens or empower autonomous weapons, the Pentagon formally labeled Anthropic a “supply-chain risk, leaving the door open for OpenAI to sign a deal with the military.
Bay Area surveillance
“We don’t believe any contractual safeguards will prevent the federal government (from) accessing this data if they want it,” said Rebecca Gerney of East Bay Sanctuary, in a second panel discussion on local surveillance involving drones. In Berkeley, which voted to acquire drones for first-response operations, police are now looking at integrating individual cameras into its Flock Safety technology database, which already detects details such as license plates and vehicle details to capture ‘objective’ evidence.
In 2025, Oakland City Council’s Public Safety Committee blocked an expansion of the $2 million Flock Safety surveillance camera contract over privacy concerns — that data could be shared with ICE. Yet, despite 4 hours of discussion with hundreds of residents, the city council voted to implement it in a 7-1 affirmative vote.
Policing with Flock cameras
After former Mayor London Breed signed legislation allowing the installation of 400 flock cameras in SF, the city has approved over 100 surveillance technologies, said Former SF Supervisor Aaron Peskin. Departments have been sharing data irrespective of guardrails, like the SFPD which uses third parties for facial recognition, he added. “It is, on the one hand, wanting to have a safe society, and on the other, safeguarding our constitutional rights,” in an atmosphere where tech companies or demagogic politicians “ like to trade in the politics of fear because it’s extremely effective.”
Journalist Tim Redmond also warned against the use of Flock cameras. “Flock is collecting data – they decide whether to respond to a subpoena or a DHS request.”
“Policing and surveillance don’t keep communities safe,” said Gerney. “If you’re a victim of domestic violence, you call the police. You can still use the hospital if you have an uncertain immigration status. But cameras don’t stop crimes – they just record them.”
Data means Dollars
One effective method to enforce protections when guardrails fail is litigation, said Jacob Snow from ACLU Northern California, which filed a lawsuit against the city of San Jose for surveilling people through cameras. ACLU’s investigations also revealed that Amazon was releasing information to law enforcement in Oregon. In fact, an ACLU study found that Amazon’s facial recognition tool, “Rekognition,” incorrectly matched 28 members of Congress with photos of individuals who had been arrested for criminal offenses. “At that level, granular data of people’s lives is dangerous in the hands of cities”, said Snow.
Ward said that San Francisco now has a spy agency called the “real-time investigation center,” which uses surveillance technology to track drones in real time. The center is not located at police headquarters; instead, it operates out of the headquarters of a crypto company run by businessman Chris Larsen, which places restrictions on reporters. “You have to sign an NDA, and you’re escorted around with security agents. The public has no oversight of this,” said Redmond
Surveillance is connected to the flow of money, warned the panelists. “Follow the money. It’s all about making rich people richer and powerful.”