U.S. Customs and Border Protection Signs New Clearview A.I. Deal ⇥ wired.com

Dell Cameron, Wired:

United States Customs and Border Protection plans to spend $225,000 for a year of access to Clearview AI, a face recognition tool that compares photos against billions of images scraped from the internet.

The deal extends access to Clearview tools to Border Patrol’s headquarters intelligence division (INTEL) and the National Targeting Center, units that collect and analyze data as part of what CBP calls a coordinated effort to “disrupt, degrade, and dismantle” people and networks viewed as security threats.

Lindsey Wilkinson, FedScoop:

In the last year, CBP has deployed several AI technologies, such as NexisXplore, to aid in open-source research of potential threats and to identify travelers. The Homeland Security organization last year began using Mobile Fortify as a facial comparison and fingerprint matching tool to quickly verify persons of interest. CBP Link is another AI use case that cropped up in the past year, streamlining facial recognition and real-time identity verification.

CBP began piloting Clearview AI’s technology in 2025, too, according to DHS’s AI inventory. The technology needed to be — and was — tuned to produce better results and limit misidentification. Guardrails have been identified to some degree.

A reminder that the way Clearview works is by scraping images it associates with specific individuals, including from sources like Facebook, across the web at massive scale — over sixty billion, according to Cameron. This is not facial recognition of criminals or even people suspected of wrongdoing. It is recognition of anyone who has a face that has been photographed and shared even semi-publicly.

This contract is likely part of the technologies for identifying incoming travellers, and not just in the U.S. — a 2022 article on the CBP website says other countries are using the CBP software that will likely have Clearview integration.