US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is on track to gain access to controversial spyware designed to hack phones and read private messages after the Trump administration jettisoned a Biden-era order.
The Trump administration reactivated an ICE contract for spyware from Tel Aviv-based Paragon on Saturday that had previously been blocked due to a stop order, according to procurement records posted on a government website.
The immigration agency signed a $2 million deal last September for the Paragon software, which has allegedly been used to target activists and journalists in Europe, but the contract was hit with a stop work order soon after.
The development gives ICE a powerful new spying tool in its nationwide crackdown on undocumented immigrants as it attempts to deliver on President Donald Trump’s promise to carry out the largest mass deportation in US history. Details about the renewed contract were earlier reported by the newsletter All Source Intelligence.
Representatives for ICE and Paragon didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. John Fleming, executive chairman of Paragon’s US division, previously told Bloomberg News the company was “deeply committed to following all US laws and regulations.”
John Scott-Railton, senior researcher at Citizen Lab, a University of Toronto-based watchdog group, warned that US government agencies adopting Paragon’s spyware could pose risks to Americans’ civil liberties.
“While some see tactical value, these tools were designed for dictatorships, not democracies built on liberty and protection of individual rights,” he said. “When you use tools engineered for oppression, you play constitutional Russian roulette.”
Paragon’s technology is designed to hack into mobile phones and secretly record messages sent using encrypted apps such as Signal and WhatsApp.
The company, co-founded in 2019 by former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, sells the spyware to governments and law enforcement agencies for the purposes of fighting serious crime.
However, Meta Platforms Inc.’s WhatsApp said in January it had identified Paragon’s technology being used against activists and reporters in Europe. In Italy, two media organizations filed a criminal complaint with Roman prosecutors seeking an investigation into who was responsible for the hacking. The scandal led to canceling a contract between Paragon and Italy’s intelligence services, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported.
A Canadian law enforcement agency is also suspected to have used the spyware to eavesdrop on messages, cybersecurity researchers from Citizen Lab said in a March report.
Paragon was acquired last year by the US private equity firm AE Industrial Partners in a deal worth as much as $900 million, Bloomberg News reported in December.
AE planned to merge Paragon with Redlattice, a US cybersecurity firm that it owns, according to Bloomberg. Virgina-based Redlattice says on its website that it explores cyber strategies to “give our nation the upper hand in securing its digital frontier.”
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ICE, spyware, undocumented immigrants, Paragon, civil liberties
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