US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents have reportedly misused electronic databases to spy on family members, try to get dates and even provide intelligence to suspected drug traffickers, according to freedom of information (FOIA) files seen by Wired. Officers allegedly abused databases that can draw from sources like license plate readers, facial recognition and smartphone searches to violate the privacy of numerous individuals. A CBP officer is alleged to have used a government database to contact a flight attendant, and another was accused of using data from trusted-traveler applications to ask people out. One employee provided border-crossing data to someone involved in a divorce, and another abused internal policies by tracking coworkers cellphones with ad-tech-derived location data. Of 300 incidents tracked by Wired, 138 were referred to CBP management and 78 assigned to criminal investigators, while 43 others weren't investigated.

Creator Hub Versus Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Say More Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Mashable Selects Switch Off Trending Now Safety Net In My Bag VidCon with Mashable All Series The devices are already in use by law enforcement agencies across the U.S. Amanda Yeo is an Assistant Editor at Mashable, covering entertainment, culture, tech, science, and social good. Based in Australia, she writes about everything from video games and K-pop to movies and gadgets. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers could soon use gloves that can give a painful electric shock to anyone they touch. As first reported by the Associated Press, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a notice on Monday revealing plans to distribute electrically powered shock gloves to ICE agents by the end of March next year. CD3s are not weapons -- they deliver small, non-injurious electrical pulses directly to the surface of the skin, the body's largest and most conductive organ, achieving NPI (Neuro Peripheral Interference), Compliant Technologies states on its website .

Records obtained by WIRED detail hundreds of allegations of Customs and Border Protection workers misusing internal tools to look up romantic interests and track colleagues' cell phones. Internal records obtained by WIRED reveal how, for years, United States Customs and Border Protection employees and contractors were accused of abusing sensitive government databases for reasons that had nothing to do with their jobs. The records contain hundreds of allegations of misuse of law enforcement databases, including federal agents querying data to look up romantic interests, monitor family members, expose various personal information and, in some cases, provide intelligence to suspected smugglers or drug-trafficking organizations. Acquired through Freedom of Information Act requests to CBP's Office of Professional Responsibility and the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General, the records reveal the breadth of alleged database abuse by CBP employees spanning more than a decade. As immigration and border authorities expand their surveillance through facial recognition, license plate readers, mobile-device searches, and commercially purchased location information generated by ordinary apps, the sheer range of these records, which date from 2009 through 2022, highlights how US residents can be--and have been--targeted by federal government employees with access to highly sensitive data and powerful tools.

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ICE's DNA Collection Increases, SpaceX's Rocket Crashes Into the Moon, and the AI Backlash Grows In today's episode of, we discuss how ICE has been collecting DNA samples of people who have no criminal convictions, including children, which end up in an FBI database indefinitely. This week on, Brian Barrett, Zoë Schiffer, and Leah Feiger break down how ICE has collected DNA from nearly a million people this year, including young children, feeding an FBI database indefinitely. Write to us at [email protected] . You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link . These samples have led to hundreds of thousands of people, including young children, to end up in an FBI criminal database basically forever. From Google Earth disabling its new AI tool after people used it to create fake maps to Substack partnering with the AI writing detection tool Pangram, companies are starting to realize that people really don't like low-quality AI content flooding their feeds. It's keeping the details mostly under wraps, but we're going to discuss what's behind all the secrecy and what this could mean for future regulation. WIRED's Dhruv Mehrotra reported this week about how ICE has collected nearly 1 million people's DNA this past year, just this past year alone, including that of young children. As we mentioned up top, this DNA collection has led to hundreds of thousands of people with no criminal convictions ending up in an FBI database indefinitely. And in fact, the Department of Homeland Security has become the single largest source of new profiles in this database.

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