On Wednesday, i The Department of Homeland Security has published new information about Mobile Fortify, a facial recognition app used by federal immigration agents to identify people in the field, undocumented immigrants and US citizens alike. The details, including the company behind the app, were published as part of DHS’s 2025 AI Use Case Inventory, which federal agencies are required to release periodically.
The inventory includes two entries for Mobile Fortify—one for Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the other for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—and says the app is in the “deployment” phase for both. CBP says Mobile Fortify became “active” in early May of last year, while ICE accessed it on May 20, 2025. That date is nearly a month before 404 Media first reported the app’s existence.
The listing also identified the app’s vendor as NEC, which had not been publicly identified. On its website, NEC advertises a facial recognition solution called Reveal, which it says can perform one-to-many searches or one-to-one matching against a database of any size. CBP says the app’s vendor is NEC, while ICE notes it was partially developed in-house. The $23.9 million contract between NEC and DHS from 2020 to 2023 states that DHS could use NEC’s biometric matching products “for an unlimited number of faces, on unlimited hardware platforms, and in unlimited locations.” The NEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Both CBP and ICE say the app should help quickly verify people’s identities, and ICE also says it helps do so in a field “where officers and agents must work with limited information and access multiple disparate systems.”
ICE says the app can capture faces, “untouchable” fingerprints, and photo IDs. The app sends that data to CBP “for submission to government biometric matching systems.” Those systems then use AI to match people’s faces and fingerprints to existing records, and return potential matches and biographical information. ICE says it is also extracting the text from the IDs for “additional screening.” ICE says it does not own or directly interact with the AI models, and those are CBP’s.
CBP says “Vetting/Border Crossing/Trusted Traveler Information” was used to train, fine-tune, or test the functionality of Mobile Fortify, but did not specify which, and did not respond to a request for clarification from WIRED.
CBP’s Trusted Travel Programs include TSA PreCheck and Global Entry. In an announcement earlier this month, a Minnesota woman said her Global Entry and TSA PreCheck privileges were revoked after she contacted a federal agent she was seeing who told her she was being “face-recognized.” In a separate lawsuit filed by the state of Minnesota, a person who was stopped and arrested by state officials said the officer told them, “Anyone who is a registered owner. [of this vehicle] you will have a great time trying to walk after this.”
While CBP says there are “adequate monitoring procedures” in place for the app, ICE says development of monitoring procedures is ongoing, and will identify potential impacts during the AI impact assessment. According to guidance from the Office of Management and Budget, which was issued before the list says the app was used by CBP or ICE, the agencies must complete AI impact assessments. before implementing any high-impact use case. Both CBP and ICE say the program is “high impact” and “implemented.”
DHS and ICE did not respond to requests for comment. CBP says it plans to look into the WIRED investigation.
