DHS is working on smart glasses for ICE agents. Democrats say it’s a threat to privacy
A group of Democratic senators are pushing back on attempts by the Department of Homeland Security to develop its own smart glasses for biometric identification by immigration officers and other federal agents.
The lawmakers say the effort, outlined in the department’s 2027 budget proposal, “presents a grave threat to the privacy and civil rights of people across the United States.”
In a letter sent to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Thursday, the lawmakers called on the department to “immediately abandon” its plans.
“DHS’s proposed smart glasses could allow its agents to identify individuals, including U.S. citizens, in real time by covertly collecting their biometric information — for example, through a facial scan — without their knowledge or consent,” the letter says. “Given the Trump Administration’s record of abusing surveillance technologies, DHS would be able to weaponize smart glasses and turn them into an authoritarian tool against anyone who speaks out against President Trump.”
The letter was signed by Sens. Edward Markey, D-Mass., Corey Booker, D-N.J., Alex Padilla, D-Calif., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii.
The budget document was first revealed on April 20 by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, who reported that the technology would be used, at least initially, by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Plans for the smart glasses, according to 404 Media, were also outlined by a DHS official earlier this month at the 2026 Border Security Expo in Phoenix, Arizona.
In the budget proposal, DHS is seeking $7.5 million to develop new technologies and tools, including the smart glasses, for both ICE and Customs and Border Protection. DHS says the smart glasses will “equip agents with real-time access to information and biometric identification capabilities in the field.”
The senators say that even when putting the concerns regarding immigration enforcement aside, there is no guarantee that data collected by the technology would not be used for other purposes.
“The dangers here are obvious,” the lawmakers wrote. “This technology can easily be co-opted to support the wrongful arrest, detainment, and deportation of U.S. citizens or other lawful residents and immigrants, as the Department has already done since the start of the second Trump administration. An ICE officer could use smart glasses to identify and later target peaceful protesters, even exploiting that information to create a database of President Trump’s political opponents.”
The letter further describes the attempted development as ironic, given the common practice among ICE officers of covering their faces to avoid being identified.
“Every person in the United States has the right to move through daily life without fear that the federal government is tracking, scanning, and cataloguing their every step,” the letter says. “Given DHS’s record during the Trump administration of exploiting surveillance technologies, we are deeply concerned that smart glasses will be abused by this administration.”
Smart glasses, if adopted by DHS, would add to the growing list of surveillance tools recently acquired by the department. In June 2025, 404 Media revealed that ICE is using a smart phone app called Mobile Fortify to run pictures of individuals through facial recognition databases. License plate readers are also being used by CBP to track individuals accused of having “suspicious” driving patterns. Straight Arrow also detected cellular anomalies outside of two DHS facilities last year that suggested fake cell phone towers, surveillance devices known as cell site simulators, may have been in use.
The senators gave DHS a June 4 deadline to answer questions about whether the department has evaluated civil liberties concerns regarding smart glasses, its anticipated practices regarding the technology’s use and which third parties, if any, have been involved in attempting to build the technology.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
