Power Grab/Fire anyone who can stop him
ICE gave Clearview AI a no-bid facial-recognition contract worth up to $9.2 million
Clearview markets a database of more than 50 billion scraped images. ICE signed the purchase order on September 5, 2025, after posting a sole-source notice on August 11.
What happened
On August 11, 2025, ICE’s Office of Acquisition Management posted a notice of intent to award Clearview AI a facial-recognition contract without competition. The notice was for Homeland Security Investigations’ Cyber and Operational Technology division and cited FAR 6.302-1, which permits a sole-source award when the government decides only one company can meet its need. It cited the company’s “unique proprietary capabilities.”
On September 5, 2025, ICE signed purchase order 70CMSD25P00000111, obligating $3.75 million against a potential $9,225,000 over a base year and three option years. The stated purpose is to identify “victims and offenders in child sexual exploitation cases and assaults against law enforcement officers.” Clearview sells access to scraped face images matched against uploaded photos.
Procurement records updated September 1, 2026 show $7,687,500 obligated and performance running to September 4, 2027. That indicates the first option year was exercised. ICE had smaller Clearview contracts in 2020 and 2021 and had used the tool since at least 2019. A 2023 Government Accountability Office report found ICE started using it before finishing the required privacy impact assessment.
Who benefited
Clearview AI reorganized its leadership in 2025 to pursue federal contracts, and its business depends on government buyers after it was barred from selling to private firms in the United States. ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations gained guaranteed access to the tool without competing the requirement.
Who wanted something
ICE’s Office of Acquisition Management and HSI’s Cyber and Operational Technology division wrote the sole-source justification. Clearview’s new co-chief executives had publicly targeted federal law-enforcement contracts earlier in 2025. The administration’s deportation drive created demand for identification tools that work from a photo.
Who lost out
Anyone whose face appears in a scraped photo online is now searchable by an immigration agency without consent or notice. Competing vendors were shut out of a no-bid award. Advocacy groups noted that the stated criminal-investigation scope has no public safeguard against use in civil enforcement.
Why it matters
A face-matching database built by scraping the public internet is being locked into an immigration enforcement agency by a procurement route designed to avoid competition. Clearview has been fined in Europe, including 30.5 million euros by the Dutch regulator. In the United States it settled an ACLU suit in 2022 by agreeing to sell only to government customers.
Sources USAspending.gov (primary)Biometric Update404 MediaBiometric Update