ICE isn’t just brutal. It’s also big business. From 2008 to 2021 ICE spent *$1.2 billion* on geolocation tracking, $561M on data analysis, $252M on government databases, and $97M on data brokers. Most of that went to companies who will lobby for this system to stay in place.

Tomorrow: #CODI member @cdt.org is hosting a webinar on “Benchmarking Beyond Borders: Making AI Testing Truly Global,” in which experts and researchers will discuss how AI model developers can help make the evaluation process more multilingual. 🔗 cdt.org/event/benchm...

How *should* age verification technologies balance risks to rights and important child safety goals? Here's what we think: #AgeVerifyFTC

FTC Commissioner Meador notes that AI and ML can help online services estimate users' ages using their patterns of use. We've argued that that's experimental at best, and will restrict *many* users from accessing online services and their rights at worst #AgeVerifyFTC: cdt.org/insights/age...

Not the goal of this FTC Workshop on age verification #FTCAgeVerify, but putting the Cellphone exhibition at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum on my weekend to do list naturalhistory.si.edu/exhibits/cel...

DHS has a history of buying surveillance tech & scooping up data with little oversight or accountability. As Congress considers handing DHS another blank check, it must take steps to halt the pipeline of easily abused surveillance tech flowing to ICE & CBP. 2/11 www.brennancenter.org/our-work/pol...

The fake news being reporting on the company's existing, factual relationship with ICE, the agency's stated intentions of using the company's products, and its well-documented horrifying actions across the United States

We profiled refugees who: Arrived in the country legally. Applied for green cards. Were arrested by ICE and detained. One refugee who was arrested found out they got their green card after being released. This is an unprecedented operation. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/26/u...

Last week in Minnesota, I watched ordinary people risk their lives to protect their neighbors. In the process, they not only won a significant—though not final—victory against authoritarianism, they proved virtually every MAGA social theory wrong. (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and the Trump administration have been clear that, to them, the problem isn’t ICE agents running amok in American cities; it’s the people documenting ICE activities and posting to social media. But doing so—even anonymously—is protected by law, writes CDT's Kate Ruane.

In addition to *everything else*, the FTC will host a workshop on age verification on Wednesday, which is also international privacy day. @npdoty.techpolicy.social.ap.brid.gy, @nullset.bsky.social and I had a few suggestions on what the FTC should focus on to protect users: cdt.org/insights/on-...

Wrote about him in TNR, prior to Renee Good. Remarkably similar incident. He’d just dropped off his kid. They rushed his car. He tried to flee. Cops then claimed he tried to run them over, despite video evidence to the contrary. Should’ve been a warning.

Hundreds of tech workers have demanded their tech CEOs, many themselves immigrants, to call Pres. Trump to shut down the brazen and devastating ICE occupation in Minneapolis. Will they listen? www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

“Aliya Bhatia, senior policy analyst at the CDT, told Decrypt that OpenAI’s approach ‘raises tough questions about the accuracy of the tool’s predictions and how OpenAI is going to deal with inevitable misclassifications.’”

Hootsuite sales rep changed his LinkedIn post to one in military-esque uniform which ultimately got him a meeting with CBP. Canadian Hootsuite wants to cash in on the US' social media surveillance apparatus to stay relevant: www.theglobeandmail.com/business/art...

we must be ready to scrutinize claims to Global South leadership, and themes that pay lip service to the idea of geographical diversity and empowerment without contending with the power asymmetries and extractive dynamics underpinning the current market structure: ainowinstitute.org/publications...

The U.S.’s withdrawal from dozens of international multistakeholder fora is a serious misstep. In a new Lawfare op-ed, CDT’s Aliya Bhatia & [email protected]... warn it undermines human rights, global governance, and U.S. strategic interests. www.lawfaremedia.org...

I have an op-ed in the NYT today about the Grok scandal, sharing my research from last year finding that legal risk hinders AI companies from making their models safer against CSAM - an echo of the years where white-hat hackers were chilled from good-faith research. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/o...

New from @aliyabhatia.bsky.social and me on how the US withdrawal from international organizations puts the globally connected, open internet at risk and threatens human rights worldwide: www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-...

On Jan. 7, the White House announced the United States’s departure from 66 multilateral organizations and treaties. @isabelalinzer.bsky.social and @aliyabhatia.bsky.social explore how the withdrawal will hamper the United States’s ability to advance human rights and civil liberties on and offline.

Who gets to say when an AI model works in English? How do we ensure safety testing is robust across languages? Tune into hear experts in the field discuss how to advance multilingual evals in the run up to the India AI Impact Summit on January 29, 2026:

AI evaluation shouldn’t stop at English. 🌍 Ahead of the India AI Impact Summit, CDT is hosting Benchmarking Beyond Borders with Cornell’s AI Initiative and Masakhane to explore how community-led, multilingual benchmarks can make AI testing more representative worldwide. cdt.org/event/benchm...

Reminder that I maintain an irregularly-updated list of papers at the intersection of end-to-end encryption and Trust & Safety - suggested additions welcome: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

In Indian election/surveillance news, a BJP-run coalition is slated to win the municipal elections in Mumbai on a platform of using advanced "Japanese AI technology" to address civic issues including tracking and deporting "Bangladeshis and Rohingya" residents www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/b...

New: DHS is lying to you. At least four videos show what really happened when ICE shot a woman in Minneapolis. Shots clearly fired while vehicle already turning away from the officer. But DHS lied. Trump lied. Noem lied. Even judges have catalogued DHS' serial lying www.404media.co/dhs-is-lying...

Good read and far more nuanced than the title suggests.

PornHub confirms that more than 200 million records were exposed, including email addresses and keyword searches. That’s bad. Imagine how much worse it would be if that data set also included government IDs. www.forbes.com/sites/zakdof...

“We are not the only ones facing health challenges in the area,” said Kasbe, who is 36. “It’s all covered with filth.” “Amazon is using the shiny thing of AI to distract from the fact that it’s building a dirty energy empire,” she said. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Age verification is not the way to keep kids safe on the internet. CDT has some thoughts about what kind of child safety policies and features might actually be effective: cdt.org/insights/wha...

Delighted to share my collaboration with @aliyabhatia.bsky.social on research that grounds online safety debates in what families actually say they need and value. We touched on four key topics: age verification, feed controls, screen-time features and parental access.

Horrific and illegal activities are playing out across livestreaming platforms. Research by the Center for Democracy & Technology shows that platforms use three major approaches to address the problem, writes Dhanaraj Thakur. But do they work? Platforms must provide proof of their efficacy, he says.

New report alert🚨🚨 Political influencers aren’t quite activists, media, or advertisers. So what are they? How do social media policies and government regulations apply? 🧵 on this transformative trend in democracy and politics: cdt.org/insights/arc...

AI systems can unintentionally worsen mental health issues — including eating disorders. CDT’s new report, From Symptoms to Systems, maps out 6 key ways generative AI may contribute to eating disorder-related harms and offers guidance for developers, clinicians & caregivers. cdt.org/insights/fro...

Interested in #TechPolicy #internships? Join us at @cdt.org next summer! Several options: Legal, research, comms, etc. cdt.org/careers/

Incredibly well-argued piece countering Haidt's Anxious Generation written with such passion and care from youth advocate Maximilian Milovidov. "Could it be that our phones became mirrors of a broken adult world, not the cause of its fractures?" joanganzcooneycenter.org/2025/11/06/w...

In CDT’s latest blog, Andy Crawford explains why it’s time for Congress and US DOT to step up and protect travelers’ privacy — even at 30,000 feet.

"It turns out you can’t rely on your citizenship or legal status to save you — whether you’re grabbed off the street and held in ICE detention could be determined by the whims of erratic AI software." Read my colleague @jakelaperruque.bsky.social www.techpolicy.press/ices-reckles...

MUST READ: CDT’s @aliyabhatia.bsky.social & @npdoty.techpolicy.social.ap.brid.gy propose safeguards that should accompany mandates to deploy age assurance mechanisms to mitigate risks to users’ rights, along with privacy-preserving alternatives to age verification.

A chilling story about an ex-partner weaponizing Apple's family sharing. www.wired.com/story/apples... This happened with AirTags and connected car services (see @kashhill.bsky.social). And apparently it's hard to ditch the primary account holder when they're no longer part of the family.

Humbled to be on a panel with truly inspirational leaders tomorrow talking about the flawed and prejudicial beliefs underpinning social media monitoring technologies and the chilling effects of using this tech to surveil immigrants (and the citizens the tech dragnet inevitably catches too). Tune in!

I receive so many questions about what research in civil society is like -- Join our virtual panel to hear more about exactly that! @cdt.org @datasociety.bsky.social @aclu.org With @thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social @alicetiara.bsky.social and @mkgerchick.bsky.social To register: cdt.org/event/advoca...

Online censorship is one of the many levers of state power right-wingers have been pulling to try and snuff out queer and trans existence. But instead of fighting back, some Democrats are helping them at the controls. Read the full #OpEd from @fightforthefuture.org

The federal government "jawbones" private companies by pressuring them to silence voices they can’t legally censor themselves, and Big Tech has erased ICE‑watching apps and an ICE-Sighting Chicago Facebook group. The full story: lataco.com/big-tech-ice By Nik Venet

one day I will learn how to spell jeopardize correctly in the first go

Not a zoho ad on a dc bus

BREAKING from PP We found immigration agents have held more than 170 *citizens* The govt doesn't track citizens held. So we did. We tallied: Nearly 20 kids, two w/ cancer More than 20 citizens held for day or more, incommunicado www.propublica.org/article/immi... by @nicolefoy.bsky.social

📢 Today, CDT Europe is proud to announce the creation of its new Advisory Council, an exciting milestone for our organisation as we strengthen our work at the intersection of #technology, policy, and democracy in Europe. 👇🏻 Read more on our website: cdt.org/insights/cdt...