DHS Harvested Data From Hundreds of Apps on Millions of Phone to Track People's Location Data

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Records obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) show that the Trump administration’s immigration enforcers used mobile location data to track people’s movements on a larger scale than previously known.

The data, harvested from apps on hundreds of millions of phones, allowed the Department of Homeland Security to obtain data on more than 336,000 location data points across North America, which might be only a small portion of the data DSH got. The data points came from all over the continent, including in major cities like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Denver, Toronto, and Mexico City. This location data use continued into the Biden administration, as Customs and Border Protection renewed a contract for $20,000 that ended in September 2021.

The documents highlight conversations and contracts betw…