US Border Agency Under Fire for App’s Handling of Personal Data

The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency has been forced to release documentation on CBP One, its border control app accused of mishandling migrants’ personal data.

In December 2022, digital rights advocacy organization Access Now submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in the US, seeking all records from the CBP One app’s launch in October 2020. The NGO received support from the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic.

The two organizations were concerned about the use of the application for automated decision-making, profiling and registering migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, stateless people and other people on the move.

Ángela Alarcón, Latin America and the Caribbean campaigner at Access Now, explained the reasons for these concerns.

“The CBP One application raises serious concerns for migrants’ well-being, not only because of the obstacles in securing appointments that could lead to asylum but also due to the lack of transparency around how their personal data is being processed and for what purposes,” she said.

“We hope that the released information sheds some light on if the personal data of migrants is being weaponized against them and to what extent, but we are also cautious about the quality of the information provided,” Alarcón added.

Lawsuits Against Two US Federal Immigration Agencies

In May 2024, Access Now and the Cyberlaw Clinic considered that the CBP had not provided an adequate response and decided to sue the US border control agency and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency for their delayed and inadequate response to FOIA requests.

In September, CBP finally released 11 document sets regarding CBP One. “At least four of which are in response to our litigation process., [but] large portion of the shared documents are redacted and some pages refer to information that was already public,” Access Now said.

Finally, Access Now announced on October 10 that the CBP released 2912 pages of CBP One documentation.

The NGO said it “will exhaustively review and assess the documentation to determine if the provided records are sufficient for the request, and invite civil society partners interested in the topic to contact us to work jointly.”