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Wednesday, The Department of Homeland Security has released new details about Mobile Fortify, the facial recognition app used by federal immigration agents to identify people in the field, illegal immigrants and U.S. citizens alike. Details, including the company behind the app, were released as part of the Department of Homeland Security 2025 AI Use Case Inventorywhich federal agencies are required to issue periodically.
The inventory includes two entries for Mobile Fortify — one for Customs and Border Protection (CBP), one for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — and says the app is in the “deployment” stage for both. CBP says Mobile Fortify became “operational” at the beginning of May of last year, while ICE gained access to it on May 20, 2025. That date is roughly a month earlier than 404 Media first I mentioned On the existence of the application.
The stock also identified the app’s vendor as NEC, which was previously unknown to the public. On its website, NEC announces A facial recognition solution called Reveal, which it says can perform one-to-one searches or one-to-one matches with databases of any size. CBP says the app’s seller is NEC, while ICE says it was partly developed internally. $23.9 million a contract The agreement between NEC and DHS from 2020 to 2023 stipulated that DHS was using NEC’s biometric matching products “for unlimited amounts of the face, on unlimited device platforms, and in unlimited locations.” NEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CBP and ICE both say the app should help quickly confirm people’s identities, and ICE also says it helps do that in the field “when officers and agents must work with limited information and access multiple disparate systems.”
ICE says the app can capture faces, fingerprints “contactless,” and photos of identification documents. The app sends that data to CBP “for submission to government biometric matching systems.” These systems then use artificial intelligence to match people’s faces and fingerprints to existing records, returning potential matches with biographical information. ICE says it also extracts text from identity documents to conduct “additional checks.” ICE says it does not own or interact directly with the AI models, and that it is affiliated with Customs and Border Protection.
CBP says that “screening/border crossing/trusted traveler information” was used to either train, improve, or evaluate Mobile Fortify’s performance, but it did not specify which, nor did it respond to a request for clarification from WIRED.
Customs and Border Protection Trusted Traveler Programs Includes TSA PreCheck and Global Entry. In a a permit Earlier this month, a Minnesota woman said her Global Entry and TSA PreCheck privileges were revoked after she interacted with a federal agent she was monitoring who told her they had “facial recognition.” In another announcement of a separate lawsuit, filed by the state of Minnesota, a person who was stopped and detained by federal agents says an officer told them: “Whoever the registered owner (of this vehicle) is is going to have a good time trying to travel after this.”
While CBP says there are “adequate surveillance protocols” in place for the application, ICE says development of surveillance protocols is in progress, and that it will determine potential impacts while assessing the impact of AI. according to guidance From the Office of Management and Budget, which was released before the inventory indicates the application has been deployed to either CBP or ICE, agencies are supposed to complete an AI impact assessment before Deploy any high-impact use case. Both CBP and ICE say the app is “high-impact” and “pervasive.”
The Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to requests for comment. CBP says it plans to look into a WIRED investigation.