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U.S. Immigration and Customs<\/span> Enforcement is launching a new \u201cDoxing Mitigation Initiative\u201d using AI to help ICE personnel keep their identities hidden from the public, according to an email addressed to all agency employees on Monday.<\/p>\n The memo, signed by Acting ICE Director David Venturella and leaked to The Intercept by ICE employees, identifies a company called ZeroFox\u00a0as the tech firm behind the initiative. The communication describes ZeroFox as\u00a0\u201ca modernized protective technology solution designed to strengthen safeguards for our most valuable resource: You and your families.\u201d<\/p>\n The Department of Homeland Security, ICE\u2019s parent agency, quietly entered a $15 million contract<\/a> with ZeroFox in July for software licenses to support ICE operations and investigations, according to public procurement records. The records indicate that ZeroFox will provide services for the Office of Intelligence at ICE\u2019s Homeland Security Investigations<\/a> division.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ZeroFox develops AI-driven software aimed at stopping data leaks across social media and the dark web, according to its website<\/a>. \u201cZeroFox never stops finding, mapping, and monitoring your digital presence,\u201d the company vows. It\u2019s not clear from the contract or the internal email how, precisely, the new initiative will function, and neither ICE nor ZeroFox responded to requests for comment.<\/p>\n \u201cIt sounds like inside surveillance,\u201d said an ICE official who spoke to The Intercept on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.<\/p>\n ZeroFox has used its tech in the past to identify and categorize people<\/a> engaged in political activism, including during public unrest in Baltimore after the 2015 police killing of Freddie Gray and the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.<\/p>\n The ICE official expressed concern that ZeroFox tech could now be used to weed out whistleblowers and critics<\/a> of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n \u201cIf things go sideways they may just throw all your info out there, make you out to be the problem or dox you,\u201d the official said. \u201cI don\u2019t trust it.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Richard Forno, associate director of the cybersecurity institute at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, it\u2019s not shocking that ICE would contract with AI companies that \u201cmay have checkered histories.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s plausible that this tech could be used to seek out whistleblowers,\u201d Forno told The Intercept. \u201cFor example, if ICE internal affairs or leadership can seed information that gets leaked, and then that information is then passed along to a reporter, you\u2019re kind of setting up a honey pot situation to figure out who the leakers are.\u201d He pointed out that the White House has already set a precedent for targeting critics as \u201cterrorists\u201d or \u201cextremists\u201d on fairly broad terms.<\/p>\n In 2015, ZeroFox offered its services to Baltimore officials for free, sending Baltimore\u00a0Police a list of \u201cthreat actors\u201d identified by its social-media monitoring system, which classified peaceful BLM protest organizers as physical threats. (ZeroFox\u2019s co-founders told the press<\/a> at the time that the classifications were likely based on their social media follower counts, and that they were labeled \u201cphysical\u201d because they were \u201cacting in real life\u201d rather than online.)<\/p>\n After the January 6 attack, the FBI struggled to identify\u00a0online extremist activity using its recently acquired ZeroFox technology, which the bureau\u2019s agents referred to with \u201ca derisive nickname,\u201d according to the Washington Post<\/a>, that involved \u201creplacing the \u2018Fox\u2019 with a similar-sounding expletive.\u201d<\/p>\n ZeroFox\u2019s relationship with ICE, according to the leaked memo, seems\u00a0to be focused on detecting information online that could identify or \u201cdox\u201d ICE employees. It\u2019s understandable for a person to want to limit the personal information published about them online, said Sophia Cope, a senior staff attorney at the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever,\u201d she said, \u201cif ICE is instituting this program to shield officers and the agency itself from public accountability, especially when information is already publicly available, then that\u2019s a serious concern and flies in the face of our democratic values.\u201d<\/p>\n ICE officials who spoke to The Intercept said some ICE personnel already use third-party services to keep their information private.<\/p>\n \u201cI frankly don\u2019t trust the feds with that,\u201d said a second ICE official, who spoke to The Intercept under anonymity to protect his livelihood. \u201cI\u2019m not really keen on giving my PII\u201d \u2014 personally identifiable information \u2014 \u201cto a company that doesn\u2019t have a solid track record with government contracts.\u201d<\/p>\n ZeroFox is owned by private equity firm Haveli Investments<\/a>, which bought the company for roughly $350 million in 2024. Bryan Ware, a former assistant director for cybersecurity for the Department of Homeland Security during the first Trump administration, currently serves as an executive at ZeroFox.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n