Immigration police continue to be talked about in the United States. The controversial agency ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) uses vehicles equipped with technologies intended to spy on nearby smartphones. This is revealed by public files transmitted by the specialized TechCrunch site.
These cars, used by the Immigration Police, are equipped with fake mobile phone relay antennas called “cell site simulators.” As the name implies, these tools can imitate an antenna, leading nearby phones to connect to it. Ice can therefore better locate them, but also identify their owners.
Controversial use
If authorities can obtain data from relay antennas to locate a suspect, this information is generally not very accurate. This is where simulators come in very handy, especially since some can even intercept calls, messages, and Internet traffic.
Used by police for over ten years, they have been controversial. Not only do authorities not always get a mandate to use it, but they also refuse to reveal its operation and use because they are subject to privacy agreements. Detractors also criticize these devices for invading the privacy of people who have not been charged with a crime.
ICE has obtained the cars equipped with these simulators thanks to an $825,000 contract signed with specialized vehicles from Techops, a company that sells customizable vehicles (vans for SWAT teams and disposals…) to the police.
This is not the first time that the use of these false relay antennas by the ice has been pointed out. In September, Forbes magazine revealed that the agency had used one to find a person suspected of belonging to a criminal gang and that he had been ordered to leave the country in 2023.
He has used these devices for years, but others of these practices have been criticized. Among them, the use of geolocation data from hundreds of millions of smartphones to track and hunt illegal migrants.
Source: BFM TV
