Listen to Australian and world news and follow trending topics with SBS News Podcasts.
TRANSCRIPT
As ICE agents in the United States cause chaos in the streets, armed with guns and combat gear, there's another less-visible tool at their disposal.
Underneath the tactical gear is an array of technologies designed to help ICE locate and track suspected targets.
Endowed with a budget larger than most of the world's militaries, ICE agents have access to both state-of-the-art biometric trackers and looser restrictions on how to use them.
Now, reports are emerging that Australia may be in negotiations to share Australians' biometric data and other information with the United States and agencies such as ICE.
Tess Rooney is a lecturer focused on AI and data governance at the University of Canberra.
"Biometric traits are tied to the body. They cannot realistically be replaced. So unlike a credit card or password, once that's compromised, it can be changed. Biometrics sit within a data that is collected on your body. So certain biometrics can also expose health information, genetic traits, inferences about racial or ethnic origin, disability, sometimes even emotional state. It's categorised as sensitive information for that reason.”
In Australia, biometric data is also collected by the Department of Home Affairs when someone travels internationally or when a foreign national travels to Australia.
Australians can currently travel to the United States under visa-free arrangements with the U-S and have existing data-sharing arrangements.
In the past, however, such information was only shared under certain circumstances.
Sherwin Noorian is a US immigration lawyer and the Principal Lawyer at Globalised.
"It's certainly concerning. It seems to be in the negotiation stage at the moment. We're not sure exactly how far along the negotiations might be between Australia and the US, on this basis it's important to note that there is already a level of information-sharing between, the Australian government and the US government not only within, you know, at the Five Eyes level, where there's intel sharing, and all that sort of thing, but there actually is individualised information about certain Australians shared with the US for travel and immigration purposes."
In 2022, then-US President Joe Biden announced that to participate in the Visa Waiver Program, countries would have to agree to an “Enhanced Border Security Partnership”, or EBSP, with the US Department of Homeland Security, under which the U-S would be granted access to other countries’ biometric and ID databases.
Set to become mandatory by 31 December 2026, the Trump administration expanded the scope of the partnership in 2025.
While the Australian Government has not announced whether negotiations on the agreement are underway, they'll likely have to negotiate the partnership in order to remain one of 40 visa-exempt countries.
With no clear guardrails in place, Tess Rooney says this agreement could potentially see the personal data of people who have never even considered a visit to the US go into the databases of the US government and agencies like ICE.
"It could also potentially encompass all Australians in these databases, and that's quite different from existing data-sharing relationships under Migration Five, which is our framework for international data sharing, or our law enforcement frameworks. So we do share this information with our Five Eyes partners, but that is very limited to specific law enforcement exemptions and things."
So what data do they want access to? And why?
As well as extensive biometric data, including DNA data, the US government is requesting inbound travellers provide five years of social media history, five years of personal and work contact details, extensive personal information on family members, and even the IP address and metadata of any photos provided.
"While the official justification for the EBSP is pre-travel vetting, the reality is that once Australian biometric data is in US systems, it becomes accessible for a much broader range of enforcement purposes, and that's really concerning. And the political context matters here. So we're seeing a significant expansion of ICE and Border Patrol operations under the Trump administration and that may be circumventing a whole range of protections, both Australian and American. So when we think about what they want the data for, there's that stated purpose, securing the Visa Waiver Program, and then there's the operational reality of how biometric data actually gets used once it's in the system."
The change would affect visitors eligible for the ESTA visa waiver program, which allows travellers from 42 countries to visit the US for up to 90 days visa-free, as long as they first obtain an electronic travel authorisation.
If you're not planning on travelling to the United States, this might not seem like a problem.
But with the data of all Australians potentially implicated in the sharing agreement, Tess Rooney says it should be a concern for everyone.
"From a privacy law perspective, the most significant concern is that they lack that legal authority. There's no proportionality, there's no transparency, there's no individual safeguards. That also implies that there is some form of security around this: databases get hacked on an almost regular basis. But there's a fundamental privacy right here for people to control and maintain their own data, their own - particularly when it's biometric data."
If the government does agree to the information-sharing partnership and you are planning to travel to the United States, Mr Noorian says travel could become far more uncertain.
"The risk is to travellers who may be planning, for example, holidays to the US at, you know, considerable cost to themselves, and then something pops up when they go to apply for that ESTA. Uh, for example, there may be something in the database. We don't know if that's going to include political views or not, or if it's simply, you know, criminal histories and watch lists, things like that. But something could pop up, and that would result in their ESTA being denied and then, all of a sudden, they need to go and apply for a visa and get more clarity, and that, uh, you know, does introduce even more uncertainty to potential travel."
While places like the European Union are currently in negotiations with the Trump administration, it remains unclear where the Australian Government stands on the matter.
With critics calling on the Department of Home Affairs to provide more clarity on the matter, Tess Rooney says the Australian Government remains accountable for how Australians' data is used, even if they're no longer in control of it.
"Under the, the Privacy Act, unless a clear exemption applies, the Australian government remains accountable for how those US agencies choose to use that data. And the big problem is, is the operational reality. Once it gets into the system, we don't have any control over how it's used, either as an individual or within the Privacy Act framework, and that should be concerning for everyone."
(SBS reached out to the Department of Home Affairs for comment on whether negotiations were underway, but did not receive response before publication.)
