A group of 70 US lawmakers has called on Homeland Security's inspector general to investigate whether its agencies - including US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) - illegally purchased Americans' location data without first obtaining warrants.

An earlier probe found that ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and the Secret Service were all illegally purchasing people's data, and that program ended in 2023. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general also found serious privacy oversteps - including employees sharing accounts and passwords for phone-tracking databases, supervisors failing to request or review audit logs to detect patterns of abuse, and in one instance, a DHS employee abusing this phone location data to track coworkers.

The inspector general also recommended several actions to ensure better oversight of federal workers' access to this type of information, including a DHS-wide policy governing the use of commercial location data. 

According to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who initiated the earlier investigation and is one of the 70 lawmakers to sign the March 3 letter, Homeland Security never issued a policy. Additionally, ICE has since resumed its location data purchases.

Homeland Security did not respond to The Register's request for comment.

In September, DHS signed a $2.3 million contract with a surveillance company called PenLink that allows ICE to use its location-tracking software, Webloc. Lawmakers argue the system can be used to obtain and analyze individuals’ location data without a court warrant. The Webloc tool was developed by Israeli firm Cobwebs Technologies, which was combined with PenLink as part of a 2023 private equity deal.

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In December 2021, Meta removed Cobwebs from its platform, linking it to surveillance-for-hire campaigns targeting activists, politicians, and government officials.

"ICE is now stonewalling congressional oversight into its purchase of location data," according to the lawmakers' letter [PDF], adding that Wyden's office requested a briefing with ICE about the PenLink contract. 

The federal agency scheduled the meeting for February 10, and on February 9, ICE canceled, "with no explanation and without any offer to reschedule," the elected officials wrote. "Given DHS' failure to adopt a policy for the use of commercial data, coupled with ICE awarding a no-bid contract to a shady data broker that is likely violating federal law, we urge you to open another investigation into the purchase and use of location data by ICE and other DHS components." ®