BOSTON — Sweeping data privacy and immigration reforms are percolating on Beacon Hill, and U.S. Sen. Ed Markey targeted both in a new bill.
On Wednesday, Markey introduced the “ICE Out of Our Faces Act” with U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon. The bill would ban Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection officers from using biometric surveillance, including facial recognition technology and voice recordings, and require the federal enforcement agencies to delete all biometric information they’ve collected.
“This is a dangerous moment for America under Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement,” Markey said, with enforcement that has become “more aggressive, more lawless” every day.
“Facial recognition technology sits at the center of a digital dragnet that has been created in our nation,” Markey said during a press conference at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center.
Over the past year, ICE and CBP agents have used facial recognition applications to scan public faces and compare them with 1.2 billion others, Markey said. Officers often scan a person’s face without their knowledge or consent and the technology is inaccurate and discriminatory, especially against Black and brown communities, he said.
“This is a very dangerous intersection of overly violent and overzealous activity from ICE and border patrol and the increasing use of biometric identification systems,” Jayapal said. “This has become a surveillance state with militarized federal troops on our streets, terrorizing and intimidating us, citizens and residents alike. … I have never been so concerned about the state of our rights, the state of our Constitution and the state of our democracy than I am today.”
Representatives for both CBP and ICE did not respond to State House News Service’s request for comment on the bill.
An hour after Markey announced the bill, a coalition of advocates unveiled a State House exhibit focused on what the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Massachusetts calls “growing threats to our digital privacy” and legislative solutions.
Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty Program at the ACLU of Massachusetts, said attempts in Congress to pass data privacy legislation have stalled, putting pressure on states to take up the issue.
The Massachusetts Senate unanimously passed a data privacy package (S.2619) in September and the bill is before the House Ways and Means Committee. The House version (H.4746) was also sent to the Ways and Means Committee in November, with a 9-0 vote for the bill indicating the committee’s strong preference.
“It makes a lot of sense that at a time when people are incredibly worried about losing our democracy, about losing the civil rights and civil liberties that we all have really come to take for granted in the United States, that there would be so much energy around coalescing around legislation like this that protects everyone in so many different kinds of situations,” Crockford said. “Particularly people who are really vulnerable to political attacks or to targets by an organization like ICE or the Trump administration.”
Crockford is “cautiously optimistic” that the bills will reach Gov. Maura Healey’s desk this session, noting it’s a bipartisan issue.
A 2023 Pew Research Center report found 78% of Democrats and 68% of Republicans think there should be more government regulation over what companies can do with customers’ personal information.
Crockford is also encouraged by recently introduced immigration reforms and said lawmakers should limit federal enforcement agencies’ ability to access or buy personal cellphone location information.
Last week, the Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus filed a bill dubbed the PROTECT Act, which would, among other policies, ban agreements allowing local law enforcement to carry out federal immigration officers’ responsibilities.
A day later, Gov. Maura Healey filed a bill and signed an executive order aimed at protecting immigrants from ICE. Healey’s office said that her bill (H.5610) is designed “to keep ICE out of courthouses, schools, child care programs, hospitals and churches; make it unlawful for another state to deploy its National Guard in Massachusetts without the governor’s permission; and allow parents to pre-arrange guardianship for their children in case they are detained or deported.”