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Is Webloc Coming to Your Neighborhood?

Understanding ICE’s new surveillance tools

In early 2026, reports emerged that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had acquired powerful surveillance software known as Webloc. This tool, originally developed by an Israeli firm called Cobwebs Technologies (now part of PenLink), is designed to track people’s digital and physical footprints with unprecedented scope.¹

To see why Webloc stirs up controversy, it helps to visualize your life as a puzzle that you are slowly putting together in the privacy of your own home. The government is forbidden from breaking in to look at the full picture. However, they have discovered that every time you buy a puzzle piece (use an app), the store clerk keeps a record of exactly which piece it was and where it fits. The government can simply buy those records from the store, assemble the entire image of your life in their own office, and claim they never "searched" your house at all.

Webloc works this way. It relies on large amounts of location data, online activity, and digital records that already exist outside your home. Because of this, many people are questioning where the legal limits of surveillance should be, even as ICE and other agencies insist such tools are vital for investigations.

Below, we explain what Webloc is, who uses it, and why it has become central to ongoing debates about digital privacy.

What Is Webloc Phone Surveillance Tool?

Webloc is a location-tracking system that collects data from millions of mobile phones through commercial data brokers, compiling signals from apps, GPS, Wi-Fi, and other sources into a searchable location database.

Its specific technical features include:

Single Perimeter Analysis (Geofencing): Users can draw a target area on a map using shapes such as rectangles, circles, or polygons and search a database for all phones present in that area during a specific time period.

Route Visualization: The tool includes a "route feature" that displays the path a device has taken, both locally and across the country. Notably, Webloc’s use of third-party data means agents can query someone’s travel history without needing a warrant.²

Predictive Mapping of Private Locations: By analyzing where a device is located at night, agents can identify a person’s possible home, while daytime data points reveal their possible employer.

Granular Device Metrics: The system provides specific details, including the type of phone, the specific days a device was at a location, the duration of time spent there, and the total number of location data points available for that device.

Advanced Filtering: Analysts can filter results by advertising identifiers (such as Apple’s IDFA or Google’s AAID), GPS coordinates, Wi-Fi connections, or IP addresses.

As you can see, this surveillance tool pulls information from many separate features to build a detailed dossier on someone’s digital life – what they say, who they know, and where they go (online).

Who Is Using Webloc as a Surveillance Tool?

ICE is the latest (and perhaps most high-profile) agency to invest in Webloc and Tangles. Armed with a massive budget increase in 2025, ICE spent over $5 million on these two surveillance systems from PenLink.¹

Internal documents indicate ICE purchased access to the Webloc system, which came via PenLink after it acquired Cobwebs in 2023.² This expansion aligns with ICE’s broader efforts to ramp up technology for immigration enforcement.

In fact, ICE’s own analysis concluded that using commercial location databases is legally permissible without a warrant, paving the way for the agency to track phones on a large scale.³ ICE’s new tools are reportedly capable of monitoring every phone in a vicinity and tracing suspects’ movements from one place to another in near-real time.

Importantly, ICE is not the only government body with these capabilities.

PenLink’s Cobwebs platforms have been sold to several agencies in recent years.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) bought the same Webloc suite to support its criminal investigations in 2020 and 2022.⁴

The US Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence & Analysis paid over $1.5 million for Cobwebs tools, which it used to monitor protest movements and social media chatter.⁴

On the state and local level, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Los Angeles Police Department both signed contracts for Cobwebs’ software around 2021–2022.²

Webloc is already part of the growing surveillance arsenal used by federal and local authorities alike. They are marketed as cutting-edge “open-source intelligence” (OSINT) solutions, meaning they mostly gather information that is technically public or obtainable from private data vendors.

“Combining our solutions will empower law enforcement and national security agencies to bring all digital intelligence domains into a single unified platform to drive new levels of insight and efficiency.” PenLink says of its own platform.⁵

For law enforcement, such tools promise a treasure trove of data without the usual hurdles. Officers can potentially find a person’s daily travel patterns, friends, and online conversations with a few clicks, instead of through time-consuming stakeouts or warrants.

Why Is Webloc Controversial?

Despite their investigative appeal, Webloc has sparked major privacy and civil liberties concerns.

Some of the key points of contention include:

Erosion of Fourth Amendment Protections

A primary impact on civil liberties is the bypass of the Fourth Amendment, which traditionally requires law enforcement to obtain a judicial warrant based on probable cause to track an individual.

Warrantless Access: Agencies like ICE justify using tools that track millions of phones without a warrant by citing the "third-party doctrine". This legal theory argues that individuals have no "reasonable expectation of privacy" for information they voluntarily disclose to third parties, such as app developers and companies.⁶

Mass Suspicion: Critics argue that monitoring entire neighborhoods or city blocks treats every resident as a suspect by default, regardless of whether they have done anything wrong.³

Loophole Exploitation: The government can effectively "subcontract" a violation of rights by purchasing personal data from commercial brokers, using information already collected by private companies like Penlink instead of obtaining it through traditional legal means.

Granular Profiling and Privacy Intrusion

The information gathered is not merely a set of coordinates. It provides a "detailed picture of who we are, where we go, and who we spend time with.” ⁷

Mapping Private Life: Surveillance tools can trace a device's path to identify a person’s home, place of employment, and sensitive locations such as religious institutions or healthcare facilities.

Data Harvesting: Tracking is often facilitated by Software Development Kits (SDKs) embedded in everyday apps like Tinder, Candy Crush, or even prayer apps. These kits collect GPS coordinates and sell them to spying firms.

Identifying Vulnerabilities: In the medical community, tracking healthcare workers or ambulances could inadvertently reveal which patients are being treated at their homes, potentially leading to HIPAA concerns and violations of patient privacy.

Impact on Speech and Dissent

Pervasive tracking creates a chilling effect on the rights to free speech and assembly.

Protester Monitoring: Cell-site simulators (often called Stingrays) can be used at protests to trick phones into connecting to a phony tower, allowing authorities to identify and track attendees.

Targeting Activism: Documents suggest that the federal government has used these tools during mass deportation efforts and monitor groups involved in protected speech or resistance.²

Omnipresence of Surveillance: The combination of phone tracking with Flock safety cameras, license plate readers, and facial recognition creates a "surveillance state" where anonymity is increasingly difficult to maintain.

Technological Coercion and Lack of Meaningful Consent

Privacy rights are often undermined because individuals cannot realistically "opt out" of the ecosystem.

Hidden Collection: Some apps continue to gather location data even after users have explicitly opted out, meaning true consent is often impossible to achieve.

The "You Are The Product" Model: Because many services are provided for "free," the user becomes the product, and their personal movements are the currency traded between developers, brokers, and the government.

Inescapable Tracking: Even turning off a phone may not completely disable all forms of tracking, and those who choose not to carry a device may stand out to authorities for their lack of a digital footprint.

The growing use of tools like Webloc reflects a shift in how government agencies approach privacy. It suggests a future where staying anonymous becomes harder for everyday people. Critics argue that Fourth Amendment safeguards are being treated less as a requirement and more as a barrier, especially when agencies rely on commercially purchased data instead of court oversight.

The Case for Using Surveillance Tools

On the other hand, law enforcement agencies defend their use of Webloc. They point out that the data collected is largely open-source or commercially available, not “hacked” from private devices.

An IRS spokesperson, for example, noted that agents use these types of tools “to review open-source data online” as part of criminal investigations, and that agents “must follow all legal and agency policies and procedures” when doing so.⁴

From this perspective, surveillance tools like Webloc are efficient means to directly identify threats like drug trafficking, fraud, or even potential violent acts by analyzing patterns in data that would be impossible to recognize manually.

For now, ICE and others are moving full steam ahead with high-tech surveillance, even as watchdogs call for stricter limits or at least public disclosure. The controversy isn’t about whether law enforcement should use technology at all, but about how they use it to target genuine threats.

How GoDark® Supports Responsible Tech Use in Today’s Surveillance Environment

As government agencies adopt advanced surveillance tools like Webloc, many individuals and organizations are becoming more aware of how digital traces are created and collected over time.

Rather than relying solely on software settings, some people choose physical methods to manage when their devices are online.

GoDark® Faraday Bags offer such anoption. Designed not only for phones, but also for laptops, tablets, and other electronics, these bags block cellular, GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth signals while a device is sealed inside. That’s why the device cannot send or receive data during that period.

While Faraday protection does not erase information that already exists or prevent analysis of past records, it can help minimize the creation of new location and connectivity data going forward. In doing so, temporarily isolating a device reduces background transmissions that might otherwise be logged by apps, operating systems, or third-party data brokers.

As a result, GoDark® supports responsible technology use by allowing people to stay connected when necessary and offline when appropriate, without interfering with lawful investigations or daily communication.

Sources

Quintin, C. (2026, January 7). ICE Is Going on a Surveillance Shopping Spree. Electronic Frontier Foundation. Read here

ACLU-D.C. Files FOIA Request on the District’s Use of Web-Based Surveillance Software that Can Track People’s Speech and Movements - ACLU of DC. (2025, August 7). ACLU of DC. Read here

Cox, J. (2026, January 8). Inside ICE’s Tool to Monitor Phones in Entire Neighborhoods. 404 Media. Read here

Cox, J. (2023, February 16). The Company Helping the IRS Go Undercover Online. VICE. Read here

Green, M. (2023, July 11). Cobwebs Technologies Joins PenLink to Expand its Digital Investigative Platform - Penlink. Penlink. Read here

Institute for Justice. (n.d.). Third Party Doctrine. Institute for Justice. Read here

Badash, D. (2025, October 17). Trump’s ICE expands spy arsenal: report. Alternet.org. Read here

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