The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to pay data broker giant Thomson Reuters $125 million for access to its databases of personal data — which includes peoples’ names, addresses, Social Security numbers, ethnicity, social media posts, and geolocation information — to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigate what it describes as “voters fraud” and immigration fraud, according to procurement documents reviewed by 404 Media. The document says Thomson Reuters is able to let ICE continuously monitor millions of people and entities of interest.
The news comes after President Trump held a conspiracy-laden and unhinged press conference about election security on Thursday, setting the stage for potentially undermining the legitimacy of the upcoming midterm elections. It also follows ICE fatally shooting 2 people in a week.
“Due to ICE’s re-prioritized mission, there is need for this data to be readily accessible to support the presidential mandate of the identification of Voters Fraud, Immigration Fraud and National Security,” the procurement document reads. “This data specifically validates and verifies school, benefit, immigration and other eligibility requirements.”
Thomson Reuters is most well known for running the Reuters news agency, but the company is also a massive data broker and sells access to that data to companies and governments. Its data product, called CLEAR, promises to “Accelerate investigations confidently through a vast collection of public and proprietary records,” according to Thomson Reuters’ website.
Thomson Reuters lists some of the data sources that feed into CLEAR, and 404 Media has obtained an internal list. It includes credit header data, which is the personal information someone provides to a financial institution to open a credit card like their address, which goes to the credit bureaus and then transferred to Thomson Reuters. The procurement document also says it includes social media, property records, geolocation information, license plate data, and more.
The planned sale is specifically with Thomson Reuters Special Services (TRSS), a subsidiary which often handles Thomson Reuters’ government contracts. The document says TRSS offers embedded data scientists to clients who are cleared up to a Top Secret/SCI [Sensitive Compartmented Information] level. The plan is to pay the company $25 million a year over the next five years, totaling $125 million.
Parts of DHS have previously accessed CLEAR data, and 404 Media has reported on internal ICE documents which say it is integrated with Palantir’s tool for finding neighborhoods to raid. But the new document stresses that ICE has such a high need for this data, that it is planning to spend more than a hundred million dollars on another form of access to it.
Screenshots of the document.
“The importance of TRSS owning the proprietary data makes it essential for quality control to ICE. The access to that data after it is passed through another vendor serving as the prime contractor is included as part of ICE’s current contract, the data support request that ICE has in the past years for CLEAR data is significant, this year it has multiplied based on the urgency to identify Unaccompanied minors and individual involved in any type of fraud of government funds,” it continues.
“Access to the same volume of data that is owned by TRSS through other companies that offer the services will sustain in [sic] additional cost to ICE because of the transactional fees they will incur in obtaining the data,” it adds.
The document says that TRSS is the only company able to offer access to the data in “batch.” Another section reads, “TRSS is the only contractor able to provide ICE with a continuous monitoring and alert service for millions of individuals and entities of interest, this is essential for national security purposes.”
In a previous statement to 404 Media about ICE’s earlier access to CLEAR data, Thomson Reuters said, “It’s inaccurate to connect CLEAR to ICE and its deportation and enforcement operations.” When 404 Media contacted the company on Thursday and sent the new procurement document which describes ICE wanting the data for voter fraud and immigration fraud enforcement, the company provided a new statement: “We prohibit the use of CLEAR for the purpose of identifying and locating noncriminal immigrants or undocumented individuals with the intention of deportation solely on the basis of the individual’s immigration status. We take this restriction seriously, and we enforce it.”
“We continue to work with our customers to provide technology and services that support investigations into areas of national security and public safety, such as child exploitation, human trafficking, narcotics and weapons trafficking, and fraud/financial crime,” the statement added. The company also said, “Immigration status is not a search field in CLEAR.”
Thomson Reuters previously fired a longstanding employee after they spoke out about the company selling data products to ICE. 404 Media previously reported ICE invited staff to demos of a license plate reader app from Motorola that can be enhanced by CLEAR data.
Emma Pullman, head of shareholder engagement and responsible investment for the B.C. General Employees’ Union (BCGEU), which is a minority shareholder in Thomson Reuters, said, “Thomson Reuters has given shareholders, employees, and the media inconsistent and shifting accounts of the nature of its ICE contracts. TRSS latest ICE contract is the first to include voter fraud that we are aware of, and we intend to press the company, alongside other investors, for clarity on this contract.”
Update: This piece has been updated to include comment from Emma Pullman.
