U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) wants information from industry on commercial off-the-shelf big data and advertising technology (ad tech) tools to support ICE investigations.
ICE said it is primarily interested in how technology solutions can help identify individuals, entities, or locations. The agency also wants to know whether those solutions can supply ad-tech location data, how precise it is, what safeguards limit sensitive tracking, and what alternatives exist if raw ad-tech data is off-limits.
“ICE components are working with increasing volumes of criminal, civil, and regulatory, administrative documentation from numerous internal and external sources,” ICE said in a request for information (RFI) posted to SAM.gov on Jan. 23.
“The Government is seeking to understand the current state of Ad Tech compliant and location data services available to federal investigative and operational entities, considering regulatory constraints and privacy expectations [to] support investigations activities,” ICE added.
Ad-tech location data is collected from apps, websites, and connected devices. It is then aggregated and sold by data brokers for uses beyond advertising, including analytics and research.
ICE said it will use responses to the RFI to select several respondents for a live demonstration of their operational capabilities, platforms, and data services that could support ICE investigations.
Beyond ad tech, ICE also asked respondents to explain what investigative platforms or data services they offer, what types of data they provide or access, and how those datasets are sourced, updated, and attributed.
The agency is also seeking details on how tools can help analysts identify and prioritize leads, link people, devices, and locations, surface patterns or anomalies, and integrate with existing government systems at scale.
Responses to the RFI are due on Feb. 2.
The RFI follows statements last week from the ICE Chief Information Officer Dustin Goetz who said the agency will be holding “industry days” to focus on a specific type of technology every quarter.
The first session, slated to be held next month, will focus on big data, which includes data products that can be used by immigration enforcement agents to get to “targets with high fidelity and confidence that when someone goes somewhere, [agents] know something’s going to be there.”
The RFI comes as fiscal year 2026 funding for ICE remains in limbo. While current proposed funding levels for fiscal year 2026 would provide ICE $10 billion, the Senate Democratic Caucus recently announced that it would oppose legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security – which houses ICE.
That move came after a Border Patrol agent shot and killed a Department of Veterans Affairs intensive care nurse, Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis on Saturday.