US immigration officials have been looking to expand their capabilities for monitoring and tracking social media activities. They have given officers the authority to create and employ fake social media profiles for various operations, including discreetly researching the online presence of individuals seeking immigration benefits. New documents have revealed this development.
Several agencies within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), such as Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), have had ongoing discussions about the use of “aliases” or undercover online accounts for investigative purposes. These revelations come from records obtained through an open records request by the civil rights organization Brennan Center for Justice, which were then shared with The Guardian. Additionally, officials have expressed concerns about social media platforms’ policies that prohibit the use of fake profiles and have explored ways to bypass these rules.
The available records do not specify which online platforms law enforcement officers were using. However, it’s important to note that using aliases and fake profiles, even by government agencies, violates the terms of service of platforms like Facebook. Facebook even warned the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) about potential rule breaches.
These revelations come at a time of increasing concern about the privacy implications of how US law enforcement monitors online activities collects and shares people’s data without warrants or subpoenas. There have been cases where police used fake accounts to surveil Black Lives Matter protesters, posed as regular citizens to criticize law enforcement critics, and sent friend requests on Facebook to collect personal information without judicial authorization for digital searches.
Facebook’s Concerns Regarding DHS Social Media Policies
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has some old files that might concern civil rights groups. The DHS already has an extensive surveillance system that helps them monitor migrants and sometimes even American citizens. They do this by getting location information from tech companies, buying data from data brokers, or using facial recognition.
One of the documents we found in these files talks about how DHS officers who work on catching fraud and are part of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), can use fake accounts to look into people applying for immigration benefits. USCIS is the agency that decides who gets green cards and citizenship. These officers can collect much information, like where someone lives, their relationships, jobs, education, and even what they post on social media if it doesn’t match what they said in their application. The document says all this information must be kept, even if it doesn’t show anything wrong about the person.
Rachel Levinson-Waldman, who worked at the Brennan Center’s Program for Liberty and National Security and gave these documents to The Guardian, says that these documents show how common it is for DHS to use fake accounts on social media to hide what they’re doing. They know that this isn’t allowed by the rules of some significant social media platforms.
In March 2019, during the Trump administration, Facebook raised concerns with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regarding the DHS’s social media policies. A Facebook representative, whose name was not disclosed, contacted the DHS to express worries about the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency “expanding its use of social media platforms.”
Meta’s Concerns and DHS’s Social Media Practices
The concern arose from a recently published CBP privacy assessment of their social media policy: “Some CBP personnel … may conceal their identity when viewing social media for operational security purposes.”
In response, a DHS cybersecurity and innovation expert suggested that CBP employees could “create accounts” to access public information and evaluate posts captured by monitoring tools to assess their relevance for situational awareness and threat monitoring.
The Facebook representative emphasized that pretending to be someone else on their platform violated their rules, stating, “Our concern is [that] we receive quite a bit of outreach from governments, advocacy groups, and our users about our companies doing more to stop the fraudulent account creation by scammers and terrorist groups. As such, the creation of fake profiles by any sector, including law enforcement, violates our standards.”
The DHS’s response to Facebook’s concerns remains unclear. However, later in the same year, officials continued discussing using fake accounts. In August 2019, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), responsible for tracking and detaining individuals for deportation, expressed interest in utilizing social media for operations related to fugitives and detainees, as indicated in emails exchanged among DHS privacy officials.
Around the same time, DHS officials mentioned that the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) branch was planning to employ “aliases.” Additionally, a 2012 HSI policy document regarding social media use stated that “undercover operations” might necessitate investigators to establish friendships or business associations with potential violators.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has consistently emphasized its authenticity policies when dealing with various law enforcement agencies, including the DHS. Roy L. Austin, the company’s Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for Civil Rights, made this assertion.
However, Meta’s spokesperson, Ryan Brack, declined to comment on whether the company had tracked ongoing violations by the DHS.
Use of Fake Social Media Accounts by U.S. Government Agencies
Regarding the records and practices related to Facebook, DHS spokespersons refrained from providing specific answers to inquiries. In an email statement, they conveyed that “DHS uses various forms of technology in furtherance of its mission, including tools to support investigations related to, among other things, threats to infrastructure, illegal trafficking on the dark web, cross-border transnational crime, and terrorism. DHS leverages this technology in ways that are consistent with its authorities and the law.”
A spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has confirmed that the USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) maintains the policy that was adopted during the Trump administration. This policy allows the use of fake accounts to investigate individuals who are seeking immigration benefits. However, the spokesperson emphasized that the agency only collects publicly available social media information directly related to matters being considered by USCIS.
Regarding CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection), they can engage in “masked monitoring” on social media platforms while conducting background checks, screening, or law enforcement checks on individuals applying to enter the United States. The policy allows CBP to gather publicly available information through these means, but it prohibits any direct interaction with the subjects of their undercover reviews.
However, regarding ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), the spokesperson declined to provide specific details about their practices. The agency’s position is that they do not comment on their investigative tactics, techniques, tools, ongoing investigations, or operations. One policy document obtained by the Brennan Center suggests that ICE officers may use fictitious online identities when such communication methods would be authorized in real-world, physical situations.
Government Surveillance and Data Extraction on Social Profiles
According to Meta, using “fake profiles” and software tools to extract information from Facebook for surveillance purposes is a common strategy. A 2022 Meta report on the expansion of the surveillance-for-hire industry indicated that for-profit firms engaged in espionage could employ hundreds of counterfeit accounts to browse and access the profiles of unsuspecting targets.
The information gathered or acquired by ICE could potentially be shared with various entities, including other law enforcement agencies, as indicated by the documents. In one instance, ICE deportation officers exchanged information with a local police agency claiming to investigate a voter fraud allegation. In another case, ICE corresponded with the Samoan government, which requested deportee records. While these cases didn’t seem to involve specific requests for social media data, they do suggest a general communication pattern.
ICE has also obtained several tools to facilitate its online monitoring activities. The documents reveal that ICE and HSI agreed to utilize a service called Giant Oak Search Technology (Gost), which boasts the capability to uncover negative news in chat rooms, social media platforms, discussion websites, the deep web, and articles or sources in foreign languages. The CEO of Giant Oak mentioned in an email that they no longer collaborated with the DHS and expressed pride in Gost’s ability to assist those combating severe threats such as human trafficking and drug trafficking while preserving privacy.
Ice also aimed to employ a tool for concealing its employees’ IP addresses during “social media review,” as revealed in the emails. Furthermore, CBP has recently unveiled intentions to expand the collection of social media handles for current visa holders when they travel to and from the US – a move that has faced opposition from various digital privacy organizations.
