A cache of hacked data from the Department of Homeland Security’s technology incubator, obtained by the Guardian, details a series of funded projects aimed at significantly expanding surveillance through artificial intelligence. The files, spanning two decades up to late 2025, reveal contracts for systems that automate airport passenger tracking, turn smartphones into biometric scanners, and create national platforms to analyze 911 calls for predicting incident trends.

The data, provided by the transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets, originated from a pseudonymous hacker. It lists over 6,800 companies that have bid for work with the DHS Office of Industry Partnerships, including more than 1,400 funded contracts worth a combined $845 million. This offers a rare view into the private sector's eagerness to develop security technologies and the specific tools the agency has chosen to bankroll.

Recent awards include $524,000 for AI systems designed to centralize and analyze 911 call data nationally. One proposal, for a platform called Cimas, describes building geospatial heat maps to 'predict incident trends'—a method critics equate with discredited predictive policing models. Other contracts fund biometric adapters for mobile phones, enabling agents to collect fingerprints and iris scans, and AI software to automatically catalog individuals' physical characteristics from airport CCTV feeds.

Jeramie Scott of the Electronic Privacy Information Center criticized the direction, stating such programs often seem inspired by dystopian fiction but miss the intended warnings. The DHS has a checkered history with behavioral screening tech; a prior TSA program, Spot, was found ineffective and was scrapped after accusations of racial profiling.

The Guardian contacted DHS and the involved companies for comment. One company principal, Zachary Canders of Cassius LLC, responded with an unprofessional and dismissive email. DHS did not reply to detailed inquiries.

Source: The Guardian