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In 2022, immigration advocates filed a lawsuit against commercial data broker LexisNexis ('Lexis') for its role in facilitating unwarranted surveillance of immigrants and political activists critical of U.S. immigration policy ( Castellanos et al. v. LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Complaint, 2022 ). The plaintiffs allege that use of Accurint (the product Lexis sells to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) violates consent, compensation, and privacy laws, further subjecting noncitizens to monitoring that can result in severe enforcement action—including detainment, deportation, and arrest. This lawsuit reflects a broader phenomenon in which brokers partner with law enforcement and intelligence agencies to collect, aggregate, and analyze personal data, build information systems to make inferences about individuals, and sell their services to aid policing activities. In this article, we argue that U.S. government use of Accurint is morally objectionable. The Castellanos complaint outlines harms connected to freedoms of speech, association, equal rights, and consumer protection. Lexis' response points to government interests in enforcing immigration laws, public safety, and conducting criminal investigations. We argue that government use of sociotechnical decision systems such as Accurint are justifiable only to the extent that such use adequately respects the autonomy and agency of persons subject to those systems, which turns on reliability, purported responsibility, stakes, and relative burdens. Finally, because federal use of Accurint conflicts with the legitimate policy goals of substate actors, its use for enforcement of noncriminal immigration violations is unjustifiable.

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