Records show that federal authorities have contracts with several data analytics firms including LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters, according to Politico, and state Democrats are floating bills to tighten up what information such services can sell and how they do it with an eye toward precenting ICE from using the info to the greatest extent they can.
Without stating any direct proof, Democrats in the state are worried that federal authorities are using personal location data to aid in tracking migrants.
The worry was summed up by Shiu-Ming Cheer, deputy director of immigrant and racial justice at the far-left California Immigrant Policy Center, who told Politico, “It really does seem like looking at technology and the use of information has been this sort of second frontier in terms of immigration enforcement.”
The fear is spurring a new avenue for blue state Trump resistance.
Extreme, left-wing California Attorney General Rob Bonta, for instance, recently insisted that data needs to be protected from Trump’s administration.
“This location data is deeply personal,” Bonta said in a statement. “Given the federal assaults on immigrant communities, as well as gender-affirming healthcare and abortion, businesses must take the responsibility to protect location data seriously.”
Democrat state Sen. Josh Becker exclaimed that Trump is “establishing a vast surveillance network” and he is introducing a bill that would force data brokers to publicly disclose whether they collect and sell user data, including immigration status, sexual orientation, union membership, and government ID numbers.
He claims his bill is “especially necessary now as we see the reality of mass deportations of immigrants and the targeting of the transgender community.”
Democrat Assemblymember Chris Ward is also working on such a bill. He told Politico, “We’ve seen how location and digital data can be weaponized to target immigrant communities, protesters, and others whose identities or actions run counter to certain political agendas,” and Wad is supporting efforts to curtail that data usage.
Consequently, Assemblymember Ward is sponsoring a bill to completely ban the selling of user data by third party concerns.
Finally, Democrat Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan is pushing a bill to ban “geofencing,” a GPS-based technology that can be used to locate where users go. Her intention is to prevent the technology from identifying when anyone enters or leaves an abortion clinic. But her bill is aimed less at immigration and more at the unsupportable fear among Democrats that the Trump administration is somehow trying to ban abortion. Still, her bill, should it become law, would also affect immigration enforcement.
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