Leo Hohmann – Leo’s Newsletter Nov 4, 2025

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I’ve been warning since day one of the current Trump administration that this is a regime that is totally sold out to Big Tech and the surveillance state. On his first full day in office, on January 21, 2025, Trump showed us his first priority was to the expansion of the AI-powered surveillance infrastructure when he invited three of the most data-hungry Tech Bros to the White House to announce Operation Stargate, to raise half a trillion dollars to blanket the United States with AI data centers.

Then a couple of months later he signed the Genius Act, another technocratic game-changer that lays the groundwork for a digital, programmable currency.

Now, Trump is making it easier for Homeland Security to scan your likeness and store your personal data for up to 15 years.

Biometric Update reports that the Trump administration quietly erased a Department of Homeland Security policy on facial recognition from its public website while deepening its embrace of the controversial technology, including a multimillion-dollar contract with Clearview AI, a company legally barred from selling its software to law-enforcement agencies in Illinois.

Biometric Update notes that the ban stems from a landmark settlement under Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act, a 2008 law that requires informed consent for the collection of biometric identifiers such as fingerprints or facial scans.

Below is an excerpt from the article:

The American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups sued Clearview AI in 2020, arguing that its massive database of photographs scraped from social media platforms violated residents’ privacy rights.

The resulting settlement blocked most businesses and state or local law enforcement agencies in Illinois from using the technology, but did not block federal agencies, including DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Meanwhile, ICE has deployed a smartphone tool called Mobile Fortify which lets agents scan a person’s face or fingerprints during street encounters to verify identity and immigration status. Internal ICE documents state that persons photographed are not given “an opportunity to decline collection,” even if they are U.S. citizens.

Procurement records show ICE issued a purchase order to Clearview in September 2024 for forensic software services with a ceiling of about $1.1 million. A year later, this past September 5, the agency awarded a follow-on contract with an initial obligation of $3.75 million toward a total value reported at $9.2 million.

That award coincided with ICE’s “Midway Blitz,” a large-scale immigration enforcement operation across the Chicago area that continues today.

Independent reporting found ICE now holds “at least $3.6 million worth of contracts” with Clearview to provide software capable of matching names, social-media profiles, and other personal identifiers.

Federal contract databases also list Clearview agreements with the FBI (a $18,000 license), the U.S. Army (a $75,000 purchase order), the U.S. Marshals Service, and Customs and Border Protection.

In February, DHS removed from its website the text of Directive 026-11, Use of Face Recognition and Face Capture Technologies, issued in September 2023 under the Biden administration.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board’s (PCLOB) May 9 staff report, Use of Facial Recognition Technology by the Transportation Security Administration, noted the deletion and said, “DHS did not clarify whether DHS Directive 026-11 still applies to DHS components or whether there are specific plans to issue an updated policy that would address the same issues.”

The article goes on to explain that while Clearview deepens its ties to federal enforcement, ICE has also deployed the Mobile Fortify app.

A DHS Privacy Threshold Analysis obtained and reported by 404 Media shows the app draws on more than 200 million images across federal databases and stores new biometric data for 15 years.

While the “intended purpose of the Mobile Fortify Application is to identify aliens who are removable from the United States, users may use Mobile Fortify to collect information in identifiable form about individuals regardless of citizenship or immigration status,” the document states.

Continuing, the document says, “It is conceivable that a photo taken by an agent using the Mobile Fortify mobile application could be that of someone other than an alien, including U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.”

Read the entire article here.

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