U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Contracts with Israeli Spyware Company

October 18, 2024

An ICE agent monitors hundreds of asylum seekers being processed upon entering the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building on June 6, 2023 in New York City. [Image credit: David Dee Delgado/Getty Images]

Cited article by Human Rights Watch

HRRC expresses deep concern about the potential for widespread human rights

abuses arising from the widespread use of spyware programs in online surveillance.

News Brief

United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has contracted services from the Israeli spyware company, Paragon. The contract summary does not name a specific product, but the company is best known for its spyware tools that can bypass the encryption of many smartphones and give access to the data inside.

The U.S. government has failed to disclose the nature of the services Israeli company will

be providing to ICE. Human Rights Watch has raised concerns about ICE abusing people

trying to cross the US-Mexico border, surveilling border communities, and surveilling,

harassing, detaining, and blocking journalists and activists working on or near the

border.