It’s Time to Freeze Facial Recognition (or Otherwise Deputize Dystopia)
November 6, 2025
Privacy Plus+
Privacy, Technology and Perspective
This week, we learned that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has quietly rolled out a mobile app that puts federal facial recognition databases directly into the hands of local police departments and sheriff's offices. The app, called Mobile Identify, is available on the Google Play Store for local law enforcement working under Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. You can read the original reporting by 404 Media here:
As Jake Laperruque of the Center for Democracy & Technology aptly put it, handing "this powerful tech to police is like asking a 16-year old who just failed their drivers exams to pick a dozen classmates to hand car keys to."
We've Been Here Before—But This Time, It’s Federal
Years ago, we urged: "it's time to freeze facial recognition." We argued that weaknesses in the data supply chain, cybersecurity risks, and the absence of meaningful oversight warranted a moratorium. You can read our post here:
https://www.hoschmorris.com/privacy-plus-news/privacy-plus-may-25-2019
In that post, we highlighted Chicago and Detroit's contracts with DataWorks Plus for facial recognition systems—noting that DataWorks Plus had no privacy policy posted on its website. We asked: "What facial recognition data passes through your hands? Where is it coming from, where is it stored, what do you do with it, and where is it going?"
Years later, those questions remain unanswered. Worse, the problem has metastasized from a municipal issue into a federal one.
You Cannot Refuse
Here's what makes Mobile Identify and its companion app, Mobile Fortify, particularly alarming: according to reporting regarding DHS's own privacy documents, individuals scanned by these apps cannot decline to be photographed. The documents explicitly state that persons photographed "are not given an opportunity to decline collection," even if they are U.S. citizens. Those photos are stored for 15 years, regardless of citizenship or immigration status. More details follow:
Congress Asks Questions; ICE Ignores Them
To their credit, Senators Markey, Wyden, and Merkley demanded in September 2025 that ICE suspend Mobile Fortify pending a privacy review. Senator Markey stated: "Facial recognition technology is often biased and inaccurate, especially when used against communities of color. The use of this technology against protesters and private citizens is concerning, dangerous, and is not just a threat to privacy, but foments a threat on democracy itself."
As of early November, ICE has not responded:
Our Thoughts
Freeze It Now: In 2019, we called on Congress to halt use of facial recognition systems temporarily while it focused on debate and legislation. We repeat that call today, with even greater urgency.
Some may view a moratorium as idealistic. It's not—it's pragmatic. Once surveillance infrastructure is built and normalized, it becomes nearly impossible to dismantle. The time to establish guardrails is now, before the technology becomes so entrenched that we can no longer imagine policing without it. Those guardrails must include, at minimum, a warrant requirement for facial recognition searches, transparency through accurate privacy notices and published policies, mandatory accuracy and bias testing, strict data retention limits, data subject rights, and a private right of action for those harmed by misidentification.
Without these protections, we are not simply adopting a new law enforcement tool—we are deputizing dystopia. We are authorizing and empowering a surveillance state in which government agents can identify, track, and catalog citizens without warrants, without consent, and without meaningful oversight. That is not the future Congress intended, and it is not the future the Constitution permits.
We Know Where This Leads: We know where unchecked facial recognition surveillance leads. China has built the world's most extensive surveillance state, using facial recognition and biometric surveillance to track and oppress the Uyghur minority—a 2022 UN Human Rights Office assessment concluded that serious human rights violations including arbitrary detention, torture, and forced medical treatment may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity. Read the UN report by clicking on the following link:
The Supreme Court once held that customs officials could not target people based on skin color. In 2025, in the case of Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, that protection was suspended. Now, federal agents can stop people based on race and scan their faces without consent, storing that data for 15 years.
The Bottom Line: In 2019, we doubted that notice and consent would be enough. We were right—our federal government is not even trying to get consent. In 2019, San Francisco banned facial recognition by local agencies while Chicago and Detroit embraced it. Now the federal government has bypassed that entire debate by deploying its own systems directly to local officers through smartphone apps.
This is not the America our Constitution promises. This is not the America we want to become. Congress must act before we cross the line from security tool to instrument of oppression.
The surveillance infrastructure is already here. The question is whether we, as citizens, will accept it—or whether we will demand that our government dismantle it before it's too late.
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Hosch & Morris, PLLC is a boutique law firm dedicated to data privacy and protection, cybersecurity, the Internet and technology. Open the Future℠.