You Can't Refuse to Be Scanned by ICE's Facial Recognition App, DHS Document Say (www.404media.co)

An internal DHS document obtained by 404 Media reveals that ICE’s new facial-recognition app, Mobile Fortify, does not allow people to decline being scanned; images captured to verify identity and immigration status will be retained for 15 years, including photos of U.S. citizens. The disclosure follows reporting that both ICE and CBP are actively scanning faces in public settings to confirm citizenship. The document also supplies new details about how Mobile Fortify processes and stores biometric data and the agency’s stated rationale for deployment. For the AI/ML community this raises immediate technical and governance concerns: a large, nonconsensual biometric dataset with a long retention window changes the stakes around model bias, accuracy, and misuse. Mandatory capture of diverse populations in uncontrolled environments will affect training and evaluation conditions, likely amplifying known demographic performance disparities if not audited. It also stresses the need for transparency about error rates, model provenance, update cadence, and data security — plus legal and ethical scrutiny over consent, retention policy, and oversight. Researchers and practitioners should watch for requests for independent audits, explainability reports, and policy responses that could set precedents for how government-deployed face-recognition systems are built, validated, and governed.