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Almost two years since Access Now submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, with the support of the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic, seeking records related to the CBP One mobile application, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency has finally released 2912 pages in documentation.
The request sought all records from the CBP One app’s launch till December 2022 — the request submission date — concerning the use of the application for automated decision-making, profiling, and registering migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, stateless people, and other people on the move.
After 15 months without an adequate response, Access Now, with the support of the Cyberlaw Clinic, sued CBP in May 2024. Finally, in late September 2024, CBP publicly released 11 document sets, at least four of which are in response to our litigation process. A large portion of the shared documents are redacted and some pages refer to information that was already public.
While there are nine possible lawful exemptions from disclosing certain categories of information in FOIA cases, and the review process is still to be done, previous experiences show that relevant pieces of information could be obscured among thousands of pages and the overuse of redactions.
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. 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.Ángela Alarcón, LAC Campaigner at Access Now
Access Now also has an open lawsuit against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency for their delayed and inadequate response to FOIA requests, as well as unresolved FOIA requests submitted before the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of State (DoS).
Access Now will exhaustively review and assess the documentation to determine if the provided records are sufficient for the request, and invites civil society partners interested in the topic to contact us to work jointly.