CBP Is Using Sophisticated AI Tool to Monitor Americans’ Social Media Activity

Meant to screen travelers, Babel X can monitor large swaths of data in near real-time

A traveler uses a mobile app for expedited passport and customer screening at Miami International Airport in Miami, Fla., on March 4, 2015. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is using an artificial intelligence (AI) data collection tool to collect information from social media activity that can in some cases be linked to individuals’ social security or driver’s license numbers, according to a CBP document describing the software tool. The document was obtained by Vice magazine’s tech site Motherboard via a Freedom of Information Act request, and described in a May 17 report.

The CBP document describes the open-source AI tool, dubbed Babel X, which was developed by Babel Street, a U.S. company focused on intelligence gathering. Babel Street’s top leadership and board of advisors include tech industry experts, veteran military leadership, and former intelligence officers.

CBP is a federal agency under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). CBP submitted the document, termed a Privacy Threshold Analysis (PTA), to DHS to “continue to pilot the use of Babel Street’s Babel X platform.”

The date when the PTA was filed is not listed; however, the DHS privacy office approved the document on Dec. 14, 2020. The end date for the PTA is listed as Sept. 25, 2023. According to the DHS website, PTAs expire after three years or when changes occur.

Screening for ‘Derogatory’ Info

The PTA describes Babel X as a multilingual tool that gathers publicly available information, including social media activity. Designed for use by the intelligence community and law enforcement, the sophisticated tool allows CBP to screen travelers, including U.S. citizens, refugees, and people seeking asylum.

Babel X is “geo-enabled,” analyzes texts, and can monitor web activity on the public, “dark,” and “deep” webs. The dark web is a portion of the internet that is not indexed by search engines and functions on a different software infrastructure. It is often used for organized criminal activity.

The Babel X platform can search for keywords or phrases on more than 52 social media websites, in millions of web addresses, and in 200 languages, allowing users to enter English terms and return foreign language results.

CBP says it uses the tool to detect information that is “derogatory” or could show a threat to national security or  CBP personnel.

The document mentions Locate X, another software that can find the location of a person using geolocation data. Also sold by Babel Street, Locate X allows users to draw a digital fence around a specific area, pinpoint mobile devices within that area, and see where those devices have traveled, going back months, according to an article from Protocol.

Some parts of the document were redacted after the mention of Locate X, and because of this, no more information could be found on the use and legality of Locate X.

Monitoring Large Tracts of Data in Near Real-Time

According to the CBP submission, “Babel X makes sense of large tracts of multi-lingual data in near real-time. Users identify themes, entities, and categories, as well as detect relationships, within the cloud-based platform. Babel users can explore the data through a wide range of analytical lenses to include geospatial, temporal, link analysis, public records search and topics of interest.”

The use of Babel X is supposedly focused on “refugees/asylees,” the document says.

The information collected may include a person’s name, date of birth, address, email address, phone number, social media usernames, content, images, IP address, domain information, social security number (SSN), driver’s license number, employment history, and location data based on geolocation in public posts.

According to the PTA, social security numbers are not “required” to conduct queries on the platform, however, CBP may conduct social security number queries on a case-by-case basis. “CBP is not proposing to collect SSNs directly from individuals as part of this effort,” it says, but from commercially available sources, “in furtherance of its statutory law enforcement and border security responsibilities.”

While queries are stored indefinitely in the Babel X software, query results are not stored by the vendor but by CBP.

Personally identifiable information (PII) obtained by the software is shared with other U.S. government agencies, according to the document.

An ‘Ever-Expanding Social Media Dragnet’

Regarding the legality of all this, the document concludes by listing several “initiatives” that are legally covering Babel X’s use, such as the “DHS/CBP/PIA-058 Publicly Available Social Media Monitoring and Situation Awareness Initiative” and ESTA, the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, designed for foreigners visiting the United States.

CBP’s use of Babel X cannot be found on the CBP’s website. However, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police mentions its monitoring with Babel X on its official website.

“The U.S. government’s ever-expanding social media dragnet is certain to chill people from engaging in protected speech and association online,” Carrie DeCell, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute, told Motherboard.

DeCell called CBP’s use of the advanced social media surveillance technology “especially concerning in connection with existing rules requiring millions of visa applicants each year to register their social media handles with the government. As we’ve argued in a related lawsuit, the government simply has no legitimate interest in collecting and retaining such sensitive information on this immense scale.”

Bennett Cyphers, a special advisor to digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Motherboard in an online chat “The data isn’t limited to public posts made under someone’s real name on Facebook or Twitter.”

Cyphers added, “Most of the people whose location data is collected in this way likely have no idea it’s happening.”

Legal Justification: ‘Privileged’

“Homeland Security needs to come clean to the American people about how it believes it can legally purchase and use U.S. location data without any kind of court order. Americans’ privacy shouldn’t depend on whether the government uses a court order or credit card,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told Motherboard in a statement.

“DHS should stop violating Americans’ rights, and Congress should pass my bipartisan legislation to prohibit the government’s purchase of Americans’ data.”

CBP has told Congress that the legal justification for its warrantless tracking is privileged, reported a Motherboard article dated Oct. 23, 2020.

CBP paid Babel Street more than $2.7 million to Babel X in 2019, and $265,000 in 2020, according to online procurement records, Vice reported.

Eighty-four percent of U.S. national security agencies have partnered with Babel Street, the company’s website says.

The Epoch Times reached out to CBP for comment.

The Babel X link on Babel Street’s website currently displays a “page not found” message.