Of?ce Uflhf? Director

US. Department of Homeland Security
500 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20536

US Immigration
and Customs
Enforcement

 

OCT 1 5 2018

The Honorable Ron Wyden
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Wyden:

Thank you for your July 27, 2018 letter regarding the use of facial recognition
technologies. At this time, US. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has limited facial
recognition capabilities throughout the course of enforcement activities via US. Customs and
Border Protection?s (CBP) Automated Targeting System-Passenger (ATS-P) and the US.
Department of State?s (DOS) Consular Consolidated Database (CCD). These systems allow for
searches against photographs submitted by non-immigrant visa applicants, which are conducted
in support of investigative activities. As ATS-P and CCD are owned and maintained by CBP
and DOS respectively, ICE does not conduct audits of these systems; however, usage of
these systems is monitored by CBP and DOS.

ICE notes that under its Alternatives to Detention Intensive Supervision Appearance
Program 111 (ATD - ISAP a new form of contractor-owned technology has been introduced
that uses facial recognition software known as This application provides a suite of
services for use by the assigned participant, and uses facial recognition software for positive
identi?cation as opposed to telephonic voice recognition or the use of a GPS ankle monitor. To
use the facial recognition function, the participant aligns their face with an image on the screen
of their smartphone and takes the picture themselves; a process that is similar to a mobile deposit
function for a bank. The image is then matched against a single image of the participant taken at
the time of enrollment for veri?cation purposes.

It should be noted that ICE does not share the participant images collected through the
application with any other agency, nor does it capture any images beyond where an
individual takes their own picture. To be clear, it is not a live or active system. ICE has found
to be an effective use of this technology due to its high level of accuracy, as it has
decreased of?cers? time in verifying identi?cations and false positives.



The Honorable Ron Wyden
Page 2

Thank you again for your letter and your interest in this important matter. The co?signers
of your letter will receive separate, identical responses.

Sincerely,



Ronald D. Vitiello
Deputy Director and
Senior Of?cial Performing the Duties of the Director

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