US immigration officials sought to expand their abilities to monitor and surveil social media activity and allowed officers to create and use fake social media profiles in a wide range of operations, including covertly researching the online presence of people seeking immigration benefits, new documents show.
Authorities within several Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immigration agencies, including Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), have repeatedly discussed using \u201caliases\u201d, or undercover online accounts for investigations, according to records obtained through an open records request by the civil rights non-profit Brennan Center for Justice and shared with the Guardian. Officials have also expressed concern about social media sites\u2019 policies that prohibit the use of fake profiles and discussed bypassing those rules.
The records did not specify which online platforms officers were using, but for many, including Facebook, the use of aliases and fake profiles, including by government agencies, is a direct violation of its terms of service agreement. And the DHS\u2019s practices were so concerning that a representative from the company contacted the agency warning of a potential breach in the social network\u2019s rules, records revealed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The revelations come amid growing privacy concerns about how law enforcement across the US monitors online activity and collects and shares people\u2019s data, in some cases without a warrant or subpoena. In recent years, police have used fake accounts to spy on Black Lives Matter protesters;\u2002pose as ordinary citizens and post comments attacking law enforcement critics; and send Facebook friend requests to targets of their investigations and then gather personal information without a\u2002judge\u2019s approval for the digital search. Facebook officials have publicly objected to the practice by the police departments of Los Angeles and Memphis, and the new records reveal a private rebuke of the DHS.
The DHS files, which date back several years, are likely to raise alarms from civil rights groups, given the agency already has a vast surveillance network that allows it to track migrants and at times US citizens, whether by accessing\u2002location data from tech companies, buying user information from data brokers or utilizing\u2002facial recognition.
One policy document uncovered in the requests says DHS officers, who work on fraud detection and are part of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), can use fake accounts to research people \u201crequesting immigration benefits\u201d. The document provides additional detail about a practice USCIS first announced in 2019. Those officers \u2013 working for the agency that decides who gets green cards and citizenship \u2013 can gather a wide range of data, including physical addresses, relationship information, employment and education affiliations and any social media posts that are \u201ccontrary to information submitted by the applicant\u201d, the policy said. Any information collected in these investigations must be \u201csaved\u201d in the individual\u2019s file, even if it is found to be not \u201cderogatory\u201d, according to the document.
\u201cWhat we see in these documents is just how widespread the use of undercover accounts is, with these attempts to hide their tracks while using social media,\u201d said Rachel Levinson-Waldman, the managing director of the Brennan Center\u2019s liberty and national security program, which provided the records to the Guardian. \u201cIt\u2019s clearly going on with the full knowledge that it\u2019s not in compliance with the policies of one of the major platforms.\u201d
\u2018A powerful tool\u2019
The DHS\u2019s social media policies caught the attention of Facebook in March 2019, during the Trump administration, when a representative contacted the DHS concerned about CBP \u201cexpanding its use of social media platforms\u201d. The Facebook official, whose name was redacted, cited a newly posted\u2002CBP privacy assessment of the agency\u2019s social media policy that said in part: \u201cSome CBP personnel \u2026 may conceal their identity when viewing social media for operational security purposes.\u201d
A DHS cybersecurity and innovation expert responded that CBP employees could \u201ccreate accounts\u201d to view public information and \u201creview the posts captured by the monitoring tools in order to determine whether they are relevant for situational awareness and threat monitoring\u201d.
The Facebook representative responded that any user who pretended to be someone they were not on the platform was breaking its rules. \u201cOur 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.\u201d
It is unclear how the DHS ultimately addressed Facebook\u2019s concerns, but later that year, officials continued to discuss using fake accounts. In August 2019, Ice\u2019s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), which tracks and jails people for deportation, expressed interest in using social media for \u201cfugitive\u201d and \u201cdetainee\u201d operations, according to emails between DHS privacy officials.
\u201cI\u2019m mainly concerned with ERO\u2019s authority to create a fake profile and how we would get around the terms of service of certain social media providers,\u201d one DHS privacy officer wrote.
At about the same time, DHS officials wrote that the department\u2019s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) branch, which conducts criminal inquiries, was planning to soon use \u201caliases\u201d. And one HSI policy document on social media use, written in 2012, said that \u201cundercover operations\u201d could require investigators to \u201cbefriend or become business associates with potential violators\u201d.
Meta, Facebook\u2019s parent company, has repeatedly reinforced its authenticity policies to various law enforcement departments, including the DHS, said Roy L Austin, company vice-president and deputy general counsel for civil rights.
\u201cWe require everyone, including law enforcement authorities, to use their authentic name they go by in everyday life on Facebook and we make this policy clear in our community standards,\u201d he wrote in an emailed statement to the Guardian.
\u201cIt is our intention to make sure that people can continue using our platforms free from unlawful surveillance by the government or agents acting in inauthentic ways.\u201d
A Meta spokesperson, Ryan Brack, declined to comment on whether it had tracked continuing violations by the DHS.
DHS spokespeople declined to answer specific questions about the records or its practices on Facebook, but said in an email: \u201cDHS 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.\u201d
A DHS spokesperson confirmed that USCIS maintains the policy adopted by the Trump administration and continues to allow use of fake accounts to investigate people seeking immigration benefits, but said the agency \u201conly collects publicly available social media information that is reasonably related to matters under USCIS consideration\u201d.
CBP can engage in \u201cmasked monitoring\u201d on social media while vetting, screening or conducting law-enforcement checks on applicants seeking to enter the US, according to the policy sent by the spokesperson, which says CBP can collect public information this way, but cannot \u201cinteract\u201d with the targets of their reviews while \u201cundercover\u201d.
The spokesperson declined to clarify Ice\u2019s practices, saying the agency \u201cdoes not comment on investigative tactics, techniques, tools or ongoing investigations or operations\u201d. One policy document the Brennan Center obtained says Ice officers can use a \u201cfictitious identity\u201d online if \u201cprocedures would authorize such communications in the physical world\u201d.
The records do not reveal what the fake accounts might look like or how widely or frequently officers are deploying them. In 2019, Ice was caught creating fake profiles meant to look like they were affiliated with a university but which were actually set up as part of a sting to catch foreign students engaged in immigration fraud.
Meta has said that using \u201cfake profiles\u201d and software tools to scrape information from Facebook to aid with surveillance is a common tactic. A 2022 Meta report on the growth of the surveillance-for-hire industry said that for-profit firms employed for spying purposes could use hundreds of fake accounts to search and view the profiles of unknowing targets.
\u201cThe market has made it worth it for these companies to keep creating these undercover accounts and collecting reams of data,\u201d said Levinson-Waldman, noting that social media information could easily be misinterpreted by police and data firms, and weaponized to criminalize people. \u201cFake accounts are really susceptible to misuse. They are a powerful tool that can be very intrusive.\u201d
Additional documents released as part of the Brennan Center\u2019s expansive request about the DHS\u2019s social media surveillance suggest that the department works with a wide range of outside government entities and at times private companies, raising broader questions about where people\u2019s data could end up.
Information obtained or collected by Ice could be shared with many entities, including other law enforcement departments, the documents suggest. In one case, Ice deportation officers shared information with a local police agency that said it was investigating a voter fraud claim. In another instance, Ice emailed with the Samoan government, which was requesting records on deportees. Those cases did not appear to involve specific requests for social media information, but suggest there was general communication.
Ice has also accessed a number of tools to facilitate its online monitoring. The documents show Ice and HSI had an agreement to use a service called Giant Oak Search Technology (Gost), which says it \u201ccan find negative news in chat rooms, social media and discussion websites, the deep web, and articles or sources in foreign languages\u201d. Giant Oak\u2019s chief executive said in an email it no longer worked with the DHS and that he was \u201cproud of Gost and its ability to support those combating serious threats such as human trafficking and drug trafficking, while preserving privacy\u201d.
Ice also sought to use a tool that would mask its employees\u2019 IP addresses when doing \u201csocial media review\u201d, the emails showed. And CBP recently announced plans to more broadly collect social media handles of current visa holders when they are traveling to and from the US \u2013 a proposal several digital privacy groups have opposed.
\u201cThere are just so many different mechanisms to find and track people and draw inferences about them,\u201d Levinson-Waldman said, critiquing agencies like the DHS. \u201cAnd these records show a repeated focus on a whole variety of methods to enable undercover use of social media.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n