1. United States
2. Va.
3. Letter

I am writing to urge you to support legislation that would ban ICE's use of Mobile Fortify and similar facial recognition apps except at designated points of entry. This technology poses serious threats to accuracy, constitutional rights, and privacy for all residents of our state. Mobile Fortify allows immigration agents to scan faces with their smartphones and pull data from databases containing approximately 200 million images. According to a lawsuit filed by Illinois and Chicago against the Department of Homeland Security in early January, the app has been used to scan faces and fingerprints more than 100,000 times in the field. Internal DHS documents reported by 404 Media in October reveal that people cannot refuse to be scanned. The accuracy problems are deeply concerning. Research consistently shows higher error rates when identifying women and people of color compared to white faces. Nathan Freed Wessler of the ACLU notes that ICE is using the technology "in exactly the confluence of conditions that lead to the highest false match rates," including intense situations with poor lighting and uncooperative subjects. In one documented case, Mobile Fortify misidentified a detained woman during an immigration raid, producing two different incorrect names. Federal immigration agents are reportedly using facial scans as definitive identification without conducting additional verification. Jake Laperruque of the Center for Democracy & Technology emphasizes that facial recognition should be "a starting point" rather than "an endpoint" for identification. Yet agents frequently do not ask for consent to scan faces and may dismiss other documentation that contradicts the biometric data. Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill on January 15 that would appropriately restrict this technology to points of entry. I urge you to support this legislation and demand that ICE implement accountability measures, including mandatory verification procedures and consent requirements, until such restrictions become law. Our communities deserve protection from inaccurate technology that threatens everyone's privacy and constitutional rights.