State Department created fake social media accounts to spy on migrants

The U.S. Immigration Service created and used fake social media profiles to monitor and oversee the activities of people who are seeking immigration benefits, reports Guardian.

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Department of Homeland Security reports show that it has sought to expand covert online operations despite opposition from Facebook.

The civil rights nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice received permission to open the tapes. In them, the authorities of several Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immigration agencies, including Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), repeatedly discussed the use of "pseudonyms" or secret online accounts for investigations.

In the recordings, officials also raised concerns about social media policies that forbid the use of fake profiles and discussed the possibility of circumventing those rules.

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The records did not specify which online platforms the officers used. For many, including Facebook, the use of pseudonyms and fake profiles, including by government agencies, is a direct violation of the user agreement.

Records showed that the DHS practice caused such concern that a Facebook spokesperson contacted the agency and warned of a potential violation of the social network's rules.

The revelations come amid growing concerns about privacy and how US law enforcement monitors online activity and collects and shares people's data, in some cases without a warrant or subpoena.

In recent years, police have used fake accounts to spy on Black Lives Matter protesters, impersonate ordinary citizens, and post comments that target those who swear at law enforcement. The police also sent Facebook friend requests to the subjects of their investigations and then collected personal information without the judge's permission.

The DHS files, dated several years earlier, are likely to raise alarms among civil rights groups. The agency already has an extensive surveillance network that allows it to track migrants and sometimes US citizens. The agency uses access to location data from technology companies or buys user information from data brokers or uses facial recognition.

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One document found in the records says that DHS officers who work to detect fraud and are part of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) can use fake accounts to verify people who apply for immigration benefits.

The document provides additional information about the practice, which USCIS first announced in 2019. Employees of the agency that decides who gets green cards and citizenship can collect a wide range of data. These are physical addresses, information about relationships, employment and education, as well as any posts on social networks that "contradict the information provided by the applicant." According to the document, any information gathered during these investigations must be "preserved" in a person's file, even if it does not turn out to be "pejorative."

“What we see in these documents is just how widespread the use of secret social media accounts is,” said Rachel Levinson-Waldman, director of the Brennan Center's Freedom and National Security Program. “Obviously, this is happening with the full knowledge that this is not in accordance with the policies of one of the major platforms.”

Powerful Tool

DHS's social media policy came to the attention of Facebook in March 2019, during the Trump administration. Her spokesperson contacted DHS, concerned that CBP was "expanding use of social media platforms." A Facebook spokesperson, whose name has been redacted, cited a recently released privacy assessment of the agency's CBP social media policy. It reads, in part: “Some CBP employees…may hide their identity when browsing social media for operational security purposes.”

A DHS cybersecurity and innovation expert responded that CBP employees can "create accounts" to view public information and "view messages captured by monitoring tools to determine if they are related to threats."

A Facebook spokesperson responded that any user who pretends to be someone they are not on the platform is violating its rules.

“The creation of fake profiles by any sector, including law enforcement, violates our standards,” he said.

It's unclear how DHS ultimately responded to Facebook's concerns, but officials continued to discuss the use of fake accounts later that year.

In August 2019, Ice's Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), which tracks and sends people to prison for deportation, expressed interest in using social media to operate on "fugitives" and "detainees".

"I'm mainly concerned about ERO's powers to create a fake profile and how we can circumvent the terms of service of some social media providers," one DHS privacy officer wrote in an email between DHS privacy representatives.

Around the same time, DHS officials wrote that the Homeland Security Investigation (HSI), which conducts criminal investigations, plans to use "aliases" soon. And one HSI policy paper on the use of social media in 2012 states that "undercover operations" may require investigators to "befriend or become business partners with potential perpetrators."

Meta, Facebook's parent company, has repeatedly proven its authenticity policy to various law enforcement agencies, including DHS, said Roy L. Austin, the company's vice president and deputy general counsel for civil rights.

“We require everyone, including law enforcement, to use their real name, which they use in everyday life, on Facebook. "We make this policy clear in our community standards," he said. “We are committed to ensuring that people can continue to use our platforms without unlawful government surveillance or agents acting in deceptive ways.”

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DHS representatives declined to answer specific questions about the Facebook posts or practices, but said in an email: "DHS uses various forms of technology to carry out its mission, including tools to support investigations related to, among others, threats to infrastructure, trafficking in darknet, transnational crime and terrorism. DHS uses this technology in ways that are consistent with its authority and the law."

A DHS spokesperson confirmed that USCIS adheres to the policy adopted by the Trump administration and continues to allow the use of fake accounts to investigate individuals claiming immigration benefits. But he stated that the agency "only collects publicly available information from social media that is reasonably related to matters under consideration by USCIS."

CBP may engage in "masked monitoring" on social media, conducting law enforcement checks on applicants seeking entry to the US. The CBP said that they can collect public information in this way, but cannot "interact" with the targets of their searches while "undercover".

A spokesperson declined to clarify Ice's modus operandi, saying the agency "does not comment on tactics, methods, tools, or ongoing investigations or operations." One policy document obtained by the Brennan Center states that Ice officers may use a "fictitious identity" online if "procedures permit such communication in the physical world."

The records do not reveal what the fake accounts might look like or how widely and often they are used by officers. In 2019, Ice was caught creating fake profiles that were supposed to look like they were affiliated with the university. But in fact, they were created as part of an operation to catch foreign students involved in immigration fraud.

Dangerous Methods

Meta said that the use of "fake profiles" and software tools to collect information from Facebook for surveillance purposes is a common tactic. A 2022 Meta report on the growth of the surveillance-for-hire industry says that for-profit spying firms can use hundreds of fake accounts to find and view the profiles of unsuspecting people.

“The marketplace has allowed these companies to continue to create these secret accounts and collect massive amounts of data,” Levinson-Waldman said. She noted that social media information can be easily misinterpreted by police and information companies and used as a weapon to criminalize people.

“Fake accounts are a powerful tool that can be very intrusive,” she said.

Additional documents released as part of the Brennan Center's extensive inquiry into DHS social media surveillance suggest the department is working with a wide range of third-party government agencies and sometimes private companies. This raises broader questions about where people's data might end up.

The documents suggest that information received or collected by Ice could be shared with many organizations, including other law enforcement agencies.

In one case, Ice employees shared information with the local police department, who said they were investigating an allegation of voter fraud. On another occasion, Ice wrote an email to the Samoan government, which requested data on the deportees. These cases do not appear to be related to specific social media requests for information, but suggest that general communication took place.

Ice also gained access to a number of tools to facilitate online monitoring. The documents show that Ice and HSI have entered into an agreement to use a service called Giant Oak Search Technology (Gost). The service "can find negative news in chat rooms, social media and discussion sites, the deep web, and articles or sources in foreign languages."

Giant Oak's chief executive said in an email that the company no longer works with DHS and that he is "proud of Gost and its ability to support those who are fighting serious threats such as human trafficking and drug trafficking while maintaining privacy."

According to the emails, Ice also sought to use a tool that would mask the IP addresses of its employees. And CBP recently announced that it is going to take a deeper look at current visa holders' social media accounts as they travel to and from the US. The proposal was opposed by several digital privacy groups.

“There are so many different mechanisms for finding and tracking people and making inferences about them,” Levinson-Waldman said, criticizing agencies like DHS. “These recordings demonstrate a range of techniques used to covertly use social media.”

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