On Wednesday, the The Department of Homeland Security has published new details about Mobile Fortify, the facial recognition app used by federal immigration agents to identify farm people, undocumented immigrants and US citizens. Details, including the company behind the app, are published as part of DHS’s 2025 AI Use Case Inventorywhich federal agencies are required to issue from time to time.

The inventory includes two entries for Mobile Fortify—one for Customs and Border Protection (CBP), one for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—and says the app is in the “deployment” stage for both. CBP says Mobile Fortify became “operational” at the beginning of May of last year, while ICE accessed it on May 20, 2025. That date was about a month before 404 Media first reported of the existence of the app.

The inventory also identified the app’s seller as NEC, which was previously unknown to the public. On its website, the NEC Advertisements a facial recognition solution called Reveal, which is said to be able to perform one-to-many searches or one-to-one matches against databases of any size. CBP said the app’s vendor was NEC, while ICE said it was partially developed in-house. A $23.9 million contract held between the NEC and the DHS from 2020 to 2023 states that the DHS uses NEC biometric matching products for “an unlimited number of faces, on unlimited hardware platforms, and in unlimited locations.” The NEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CBP and ICE said the app should help quickly confirm people’s identities, and ICE further said it could help do so in the field “when officers and agents must work with limited information and access multiple disparate systems.”

ICE says the app can capture faces, “contactless” fingerprints, and photos on identity documents. The app sends that data to CBP “for submission to the government’s biometric matching system.” Those systems then use AI to match people’s faces and fingerprints to existing records, and return possible matches along with biographic information. ICE said it is also extracting text from identity documents for “additional checks.” ICE says it does not own or interact directly with the AI ​​models, and that belongs to CBP.

CBP said the “Border Inspection Information/Trusted Traveler Information” was used to train, repair, or evaluate the performance of Mobile Fortify, but it did not specify where, and did not respond to a request for clarification from WIRED.

CBP Trusted Traveler Programs includes TSA PreCheck and Global Entry. In a declaration Earlier this month, a Minnesota woman said her Global Entry and TSA PreCheck privileges were revoked after interacting with a federal agent she observed telling her they had “facial recognition.” In another declaration for a separate lawsuit, filed by the state of Minnesota, an individual who was stopped and detained by federal agents said an officer told them, “Whoever is the registered owner (of this vehicle) will enjoy a test drive after this.

While CBP says there are “adequate monitoring protocols” in place for the app, ICE says development of monitoring protocols is ongoing, and that it will identify potential impacts during an AI impact assessment. According to guiding from the Office of Management and Budget, issued before the inventory says the app is deployed for CBP or ICE, the agencies must complete an AI impact assessment HISTORY deploy any high-impact use case. Both CBP and ICE say the app is “high-impact” and “deployable.”

DHS and ICE did not respond to requests for comment. CBP said it plans to look into WIRED’s inquiry.