Phone privacy is key for protecting your rights

Your data does not stay only on your devices, but can be handed over to law enforcement agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement. With the amount of data that your phone contains about you, here are some things you should know.

There are some ways you can keep more of your personal data safe. Here is an article with a few suggestions. Documented Jan 2025. Your phone saves and shares a lot of data on your locations. Following the suggestions of experts on how to limit location sharing will provide you with some protection. You can also choose to encrypt messages and calls.

Data from your phone, but from many other sources as well, are collected and shared through intermediary companies, called data brokers. Data brokers collect personal information and can sell it to law enforcement agencies, including ICE. Find more information about data brokers here. Two of the biggest ones are Thomas Reuters and LexisNexis, as explained in this report.

In some circumstances, ICE may also look at other kinds of data in your phone. ICE and its related agencies have tech that allows them to download all the data stored on a phone. Read more about this here. Many US government agencies, including ICE, have bought surveillance technology that can access phones with encryption, as explained here.

Always remember, too, that whatever you share on social media can be viewed and saved, even after you delete it. Taking precautions like not using your real name, keeping your accounts private, and making sure apps don’t have access to your location will help keep some of your personal information safe.