Law enforcement

ICE JUST LAUNCHED A $2.4M CONTRACT WITH A SECRETIVE DATA SURVEILLANCE COMPANY THAT TRACKS YOU IN REAL TIME

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has signed a $2.4 million contract with a little-known surveillance company that mines communications data and provides "real-time" tracking.

Data published on the U.S. government's spending website shows the Department of Homeland Security contracted Pen-Link Ltd. (PenLink), a software company that develops communications surveillance collection systems, on June 4 with ICE listed as the contracting subagency.

PenLink provides software that allows enforcement bodies to collect and analyze "massive amounts of social media and internet communications data," as well as collect wiretap intercepts "in real-time" for "tracking" and "live monitoring," according to its website.

Julian Sanchez, a privacy and surveillance expert with the Cato Institute, said the company appears to specialize in telephone data analysis and geolocation data mining and tracking that could potentially determine where people are "within a block" of a cell tower.