According to a recent allegation, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has given Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel a “suite of services” for following its client’s geo-location data and transactions.
The report claims that ICE has been given access to Coinbase Tracer, an intelligence-gathering tool that offers a range of forensic data tracking capabilities.
An administrative division of the Department of Homeland Security is United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE’s main goal is to safeguard the nation from illegal immigration and cross-border crime.
The goal of Coinbase Tracer is to help ICE track out malicious and fraudulent blockchain transactions. The program will enable ICE agents to “link addresses to real-world organizations,” according to The Intercept.
According to a second communication made public through the Freedom of Information Act, ICE was not obligated to accept an End User License Agreement with Coinbase.
What users are permitted to and are not permitted to do with a company’s software products is specified in an end-user license agreement. This supposedly suggests that there aren’t many limitations on how ICE can use the data tracking technology.
When asked about these developments, Coinbase spokesperson Natasha LaBranche only provided a link to the website of the business, which contains language addressing the problem.
“Coinbase Tracer derives its information from public sources and does not use Coinbase user data,” reads the link on the Coinbase website. Regarding restrictions on Coinbase Tracer’s use by ICE, the Coinbase spokesman was silent.
A $1.36 million contract that ICE signed with the cryptocurrency exchange in September 2021 gives it access to Coinbase Tracer. The details of the agreement at the time were unclear, but it mostly involved Coinbase providing “application development software as a service” to the government.
Recently, Coinbase has made a lot of press for a variety of reasons. The exchange, as Cointelegraph revealed, is looking to aggressively expand into Europe to increase its market share. Following a more than 80% fall, Goldman Sachs on Monday downgraded Coinbase shares to “sell.”
