In March the State Department issued a notice proposing that all immigrant and nonimmigrant visa applicants be required to provide their social media identifiers “for identity resolution and vetting purposes.” CDT filed comments opposing this latest social media information request, and highlighted that it would chill free speech, fail to detect threats, and lead to unintentionally incomplete applications, adverse determinations, and problematic algorithmic screening.
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For now, ICE appears to be backing off of its pursuit of this technology and will instead hire analysts to expand vetting using “current technological capabilities” – but a lot of questions remain about ICE’s new “Visa Lifecycle Vetting” initiative.
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The New York City Council has taken a proactive step by enacting a bill establishing a task force to explore fairness, accountability, and transparency in automated decision-making systems operated by the city. This is a big deal. The use of these technologies by city governments have real impacts on citizens. Today, in New York City, algorithms have been used to assign children to public schools, evaluate teachers, target buildings for fire inspections, and make policing decisions. However, public insight into how these systems work and how these decisions are being reached is inadequate.
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Today, CDT joined 55 civil society groups, as well as leading computer and data science experts, to oppose the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) automated extreme vetting initiative. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to use automated technology and social media data to decide who gets deported or denied entry to the United States. This initiative is not only discriminatory but also technically infeasible.
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