ICE's forced face scans to verify citizens is unconstitutional, lawmakers say (arstechnica.com)

A viral video obtained by 404 Media shows ICE/CBP officers stopping a Chicago teen who lacked government ID and asking a colleague to “do facial,” then scanning his face with a phone app to pull up identity details. While the exact app used in that stop is unclear, leaked emails and prior reporting show ICE has deployed tools such as Mobile Fortify that connect to hundreds of government databases and can compare a single photo against roughly 200 million images to return a person’s name, date of birth, alien number and even whether there’s an active deportation order. Lawmakers and civil-rights advocates argue this deployment is both unconstitutional and dangerous for marginalized communities. Bernie Sanders and seven Democratic senators have urged ICE to stop using Mobile Fortify and similar biometric tools, citing proven bias and inaccuracy—especially for people of color—and documented cases of wrongful detention based on faulty “biometric confirmation.” Technically, mobile face-scanning tied to massive, heterogeneous datasets amplifies risks of false matches, mission creep, and automated racial profiling, raising urgent legal and policy questions about oversight, accuracy thresholds, and when (or whether) law enforcement should be allowed to compel biometric scans from civilians.