{"schema_version":"0.10.0","id":"LR-2026-0519","record_version":1,"title":"ICE private contractors use AI-assisted skip tracing to locate immigrants","verification":{"human_verified":false,"method":"automated_gate","auto_verified":true,"score":44.5,"score_breakdown":{"source_authority":12.1,"independent_corroboration":7.0,"implicated_party_confirmed":0.0,"citation_integrity":14.0,"specificity":0.0,"completeness":4.16,"unhedged_language":5.0},"checks":{"schema_valid":true,"every_field_cited":true,"quotes_verbatim":true,"source_fetched":true,"distinct_incident":true,"dates_plausible":true,"sources_agree":true,"source_describes_incident":true,"severe_backed_by_source":true,"record_integrity":true,"eligible":true,"about_this_case":true},"gate_version":"gate-2026-10-18.7","cross_check_model":null,"cross_check_agreement":null,"duplicate_of":null,"verified_by":null,"verified_at":"2026-11-01","extraction_run_id":null,"evidence_level":{"level":"preliminary","reason":"Publisher not yet named · subject to change","original_document":null,"reports_total":1,"reports_independent":0,"reports_derivative":0,"developing":false,"disputed":false,"rules_version":"evidence-2026-10-29.1","computed_at":"2026-11-01","history":[{"date":"2026-11-01","from_level":null,"to_level":"preliminary","reason":"Publisher not yet named · subject to change"}]},"sources_hash":"0f7ee4aa7c12544090d9bbf96848efeda9569373eb782bdddf2b56dcac3ca591"},"system":{"model_name":null,"model_version":null,"developer":"unknown","harness":null,"tools_granted":[],"permissions_scope":null,"autonomy_level":"unknown","guardrails_present":[],"deployment_context":"unknown","tier":null,"lifecycle_stage":null,"integration_type":null,"intended_use":"locate individuals so ICE can conduct targeted enforcement operations to arrest and detain them","safeguard_state":null,"production_intended":null},"event":{"date_occurred":null,"date_disclosed":"2026-04-02","incident_class":"other","failure_class":null,"agent_involved":null,"secondary_failure_classes":[],"trigger":"unknown","duration":null,"detection_method":"unknown","summary":"ICE contracted private firms that use data tools, online research and, increasingly, artificial intelligence to locate immigrants so that ICE can carry out enforcement operations. Contractors receive personal data, verify addresses and take time-stamped photos of homes and workplaces. Reporting by Scripps News found ICE awarded contracts to 13 private companies for skip tracing. Contractors are paid bonuses for locating people quickly, which the sources say risks compromising due process and accuracy. The sources note that scaling this surveillance increases the risk of error, citing recent cases in which AI tools misidentified people, leading to wrongful arrests. Details of data verification and error correction for this program have not been made public. Capgemini, one contractor, launched an internal review after French officials raised concerns.","tags":[],"date_detected":null,"near_miss":null,"root_cause":null,"root_cause_detail":null,"failure_class_detail":null,"responsible_party":null,"adversarial_actor":null,"input_provenance":null,"time_to_contain":null,"operations_paused":null,"remediation":null,"precursor_events":null,"primary_risk":"RK15"},"impact":{"direct_loss_usd":null,"remediation_hours":null,"records_exposed":null,"third_parties_affected_count":null,"severity":"major","severity_because":"Test: many third parties, a stated count of two or more. Fact: the source states the system targets more than 1 million immigrants. This is a stated targeting scope, not a confirmed count of harmed people.","harm_class":["privacy"],"affected_description":"immigrants in the United States targeted by ICE contractors using skip tracing","protected_class_involved":null,"data_categories_exposed":["names","dates_of_birth","addresses","contact_information"],"loss_range_usd":null,"reversibility":null,"downstream_exposure_count":null},"evidence":{"sources":[{"url":"https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/ice-bounty-hunters-use-ai-track-immigrants/","publisher":"American Immigration Council","date":"2026-04-02","type":"press","title":"ICE’s Private Bounty Hunters Use AI to Track Immigrants - American Immigration Council","archived_url":null,"attachment":"first_report"}],"per_field_confidence":{"system.intended_use":"C","impact.affected_description":"C","impact.data_categories_exposed":"C","impact.harm_class":"C","context.industry":"C","context.country":"C","event.incident_class":"D","impact.severity":"D","impact.severity_because":"D","event.primary_risk":"D","event.summary":"C","system.autonomy_level":"D","system.deployment_context":"D","event.trigger":"D","event.detection_method":"D","system.developer":"D","event.date_disclosed":"D","context.denominator_available":"D"},"field_citations":{"system.intended_use":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Each month, private contractors receive tens of thousands of names from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and are asked to locate those individuals as quickly as possible so that ICE can conduct targeted enforcement operations to arrest and detain those individuals."}],"impact.affected_description":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Zoom out, and it reveals a massive AI-assisted surveillance system targeting more than 1 million immigrants in the United States."}],"impact.data_categories_exposed":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Contractors are given personal data, including names, dates of birth, addresses, and contact information."}],"impact.harm_class":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Contractors are given personal data, including names, dates of birth, addresses, and contact information."}],"context.industry":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Some of the companies contracted by ICE have backgrounds in military or intelligence work, such as Bluehawk LLC, SOS International, and Gravitas, and have used artificial intelligence and large language models as part of their work."}],"context.country":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Reporting by Scripps News found that ICE awarded contracts to 13 private companies to provide “skip tracing services nationwide.”"}],"event.incident_class":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Skip tracing is not just about finding people. It is about building a system — a surveillance supply chain in which artificial intelligence amplifies existing legal and ethical concerns."}],"impact.severity":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Zoom out, and it reveals a massive AI-assisted surveillance system targeting more than 1 million immigrants in the United States."}],"impact.severity_because":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Zoom out, and it reveals a massive AI-assisted surveillance system targeting more than 1 million immigrants in the United States."}],"event.summary":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Contractors are using a mix of data tools, online research, and, increasingly, artificial intelligence to locate people — allowing for a faster and much larger sweep than before."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Contractors are given personal data, including names, dates of birth, addresses, and contact information."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Reporting by Scripps News found that ICE awarded contracts to 13 private companies to provide “skip tracing services nationwide.”"},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Under the ICE contracts, businesses are rewarded for speed, receiving bonuses if they can verify a person’s location within 7 or 14 days."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"But scaling surveillance in this way also increases the risk of error: recent cases show how AI tools, including facial recognition systems like Clearview AI, have misidentified individuals, leading to wrongful arrests and months of detention for people who had no connection to the alleged activity."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"The program relies on a combination of government records, commercial data sources, and online information, although details about which specific databases are being used, how the accuracy of the data is being verified, and how any errors are corrected have not been made public."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"In one case, the contractor, Paris-based Capgemini, launched an internal review after French government officials raised concerns about its involvement in the program and called for greater transparency."}]},"notes_on_gaps":"Single press source describing a surveillance program, not one discrete AI failure. No autonomous agent behaviour, model, developer, harness, or tool list is stated, so those fields are omitted. No occurrence date or detection date is stated; the article date 2026-04-02 is a header, not a quotable sentence, so it is not used as date_disclosed. The 1.5 million figure is an Intercept estimate and the 1.2 billion figure is a contract ceiling, so neither is used as a count or loss. No direct loss, records count, or third-party count is stated exactly; severity major rests on the stated scope of more than 1 million immigrants targeted, which is a targeting scope, not confirmed harm. Judgement: incident_class set to other; I7 marked missing because the source says verification and error-correction details are not public, which is not proof no check existed. Deployment context, lifecycle stage and autonomy are not stated and are omitted. No remediations are reported. [case created by the backfill: read by claude-haiku-5-5, backfill-2026-11-01.2, 2026-11-01; not yet reviewed] [2026-11-01: evidence level set: Preliminary (Publisher not yet named · subject to change)]"},"context":{"industry":"government contracting and immigration enforcement","org_size_band":null,"country":"US","denominator_available":false,"denominator":null,"related_incident_ids":[],"systemic_exposure":null,"shared_model_id":null,"upstream_incident_id":null,"incident_evidence":null,"regulatory":null,"coverage":null},"narrative":{"steps":[{"step":"doing","text":"Private contractors for ICE use data tools, online research and AI to locate immigrants named by ICE, with a faster and larger sweep than before.","quote":"Contractors are using a mix of data tools, online research, and, increasingly, artificial intelligence to locate people — allowing for a faster and much larger sweep than before.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"},{"step":"went_wrong","text":"The source says scaling this surveillance raises the risk of error, citing recent cases in other programs where AI misidentified people and led to wrongful arrests.","quote":"But scaling surveillance in this way also increases the risk of error: recent cases show how AI tools, including facial recognition systems like Clearview AI, have misidentified individuals, leading to wrongful arrests and months of detention for people who had no connection to the alleged activity.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"}],"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"backfill-2026-11-01.2","extracted_at":"2026-11-01","source_urls":["https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/ice-bounty-hunters-use-ai-track-immigrants/"]},"analysis":{"sections":{"timeline":[{"text":"ICE contracts for skip tracing services were issued to private companies.","quote":"These open-ended contracts were issued in December 2025 and could total $1.2 billion over two years.","source_index":0,"when":"2025-12"},{"text":"Contractors receive batches of names from ICE each month to locate.","quote":"Each month, private contractors receive tens of thousands of names from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and are asked to locate those individuals as quickly as possible so that ICE can conduct targeted enforcement operations to arrest and detain those individuals.","source_index":0,"when":null}]},"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"backfill-2026-11-01.2","extracted_at":"2026-11-01","source_urls":["https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/ice-bounty-hunters-use-ai-track-immigrants/"]}}