ICE Homeland Security Investigations

GAO's September 2023 report found Homeland Security Investigations using Clearview AI, recording 2,689 searches by 106 staff between 4 March 2021 and 31 March 2022; ICE required training before use from January 2021 and HSI enforced it from March 2021, but 15 staff ran 569 searches before completing it. GAO states that ICE "has not used this service in immigration law enforcement or removal operations", and gives a child sexual abuse material investigation as an example of HSI's use. The DHS 2025 AI Use Case Inventory lists four deployed ICE facial recognition uses, one by HSI's Child Exploitation Investigations Unit from December 2020 and three from January 2025, in which investigators submit photographs to an AI-enabled service that compares them with publicly available online images; the vendor is withheld as law enforcement sensitive, so the inventory does not name Clearview. ID Tech reported on 15 September 2025 that HSI had finalised a Clearview AI contract worth about $9.2 million, about $3.75 million of it paid up front, to support cases involving assaults on law enforcement officers and child sexual exploitation. Biometric Update reported on 18 August 2026 that court records in a Minnesota prosecution linked to Operation Metro Surge include at least two Clearview AI search reports produced by HSI as part of 2026 intelligence files. A May 2024 HSI Office of Intelligence systems inventory obtained by 404 Media, reported by Biometric Update on 24 July 2026, lists Clearview AI with access limited to specific circumstances. The sources do not state when HSI first used the tool.