Report: DHS Plans to Stop Buying Phone Movement Data

The Department of Homeland Security has paused its practice of buying access to commercially available data that shows the movement of phones and is expected to stop the practice that has allowed it to track people since 2018. 

Several agencies in the department, including Customs and Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Secret Service, have been buying the access for years. DHS is expected to stop buying access to commercially available data that can be used and searched without court oversight, reports NOTUS.

The practice was put on hold after a DHS watchdog report last year brought recommendations to draw up better policies; and now, the use of the data appears to be winding down, according to sources said to be familiar with the matter.

Further, the use of cellphone data has brought concerns from the DHS privacy office over compliance with a 2018 Supreme Court ruling that Americans are to have a reasonable expectation of the privacy of their geolocation data. 

ICE as recently as September 2023 was still using the data, saying that it was important to its investigative process and could “fill knowledge gaps and produce investigative leads that might otherwise remain hidden.”

In January, however, ICE told FedScoop that it was no longer buying the data. 

“The information that is available commercially would kind of knock your socks off,” said former top CIA official Michael Morell on a podcast last year. “If we collected it using traditional intelligence methods, it would be top-secret sensitive. And you wouldn’t put it in a database; you’d keep it in a safe.”