Apple removed an app that allows immigrants to track Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity on Thursday night.
ICEBlock, an app that was launched in response to President Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown, was modeled after Google’s crowdsourced traffic app Waze, and it gave users a crowdsourced way to report nearby ICE activity.
“We just received a message from Apple’s App Review that #ICEBlock has been removed from the App Store due to ‘objectionable content’. The only thing we can imagine is this is due to pressure from the Trump Admin. We have responded and we’ll fight this! #resist,” ICEBlock said in a post on Bluesky.
ICEBlock received intense backlash from Trump administration officials earlier this year. ICE Acting Director Todd M. Lyons claimed that the app “basically paints a target on federal law enforcement officers’ backs,” in a press statement from June.
Attorney General Pam Bondi is now taking credit for the removal, telling Fox News that her office reached out to Apple to demand they remove the app
Earlier this summer, Bondi also went on Fox News to openly threaten ICEBlock’s founder Joshua Aaron. “We are looking at him,” she said. “And he better watch out.” Around that time, Bondi also said that she wanted to prosecute CNN for airing a segment on the app.
Acting director of ICE’s removal operations, Marcos Charles, also suggested ICEBlock and similar ICE tracking apps were used in the fatal shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas, although the shooter would have known the location of the facility without a tracker app.
“I am incredibly disappointed by Apple’s actions today. Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never the right move,” Aaron told 404 Media. “This is protected speech under the first amendment of the United States Constitution.”
“Information provided to Apple by law enforcement show that your app violates Guideline 1.1.1 because its purpose is to provide a location information about law enforcement officers that can be used to harm such officers individually or as a group,” Apple’s email to Aaron read, according to 404 Media.
In 2019, Apple removed a similar crowdsourced app that allowed users to track Hong Kong police movements amidst the Hong Kong protests that were marked by police brutality. At the time, numerous Republican lawmakers were quick to criticize the decision and deem it censorship.
“American companies should never be censored or told what to by foreign adversaries,” Republican Florida senator Rick Scott tweeted at the time.
ICEBlock was number one on the App Store over the summer as the Trump administration ramped up its policy of mass deportations and ICE raids, as part of the President’s campaign promise to enact the “largest deportation” in U.S. history.
“In recent years, ICE has faced criticism for alleged civil rights abuses and failures to adhere to constitutional principles and due process, making it crucial for communities to stay informed about its operations,” ICEBlock’s website writes to explain why the app exists.
The app insists that it’s completely anonymous, but that claim has been contested. ICEBlock, the app does not keep a database of user activity, but a database of downloads is available on Apple, and it’s likely that Apple also tracks device registrations for push notifications, according to the founders of other privacy-focused apps who spoke to The Verge about it earlier this year. On the other hand, a third-party security researcher has corroborated ICEBlock’s claims of total privacy and anonymity.
The app was available exclusively for iOS devices, so it’s now unclear what the future holds for ICEBlock and its users.
Read the full article here
