Apple removes ice from its app store

Apple has removed IceBlock, which allows users to track and report the location of Immigration Enforcement (ICE) officials from its App Store.

“We created the App Store as a safe and trustworthy place,” Apple said in a statement from the Hill Sisters Company Newsnation. “Based on the information we received from law enforcement about the security risks associated with IceBlock, we removed it and similar apps from the App Store.”

The app was created in April and allows users to track and fix the location of ICE officials. Those with a fixed officer radius of five miles will be notified.

Fox reported Thursday that Attorney General Pam Bondi asked Apple to remove IceBlock from the App Store. The mountain has been contacted with the Department of Justice (DOJ) for comment.

Since President Trump returned to office in January, ICE has carried out many immigration raids nationwide, raising concerns and protests among immigrant communities and supporters.

According to a report by CNN on IceBlock in June, the app has more than 20,000 users. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary Kristi Noem told reporters a day after CNN’s story was published in July that her department was working with the DOJ to “see if we can sue” the store. Trump’s border tsar Tom Homan made similar criticisms.

Marcos Charles, the acting head of ICE law enforcement and evacuation operations, said in September that Iceblock and similar apps “sent actors to call for bad actors to attack law enforcement” in a press conference in which a gunman fatally shot two detainees in an ICE facility in Dallas. Charles said the Dead Shooter used the ice tracking app to plan the incident.

“Any app that creates or distributes these apps to discover, track and find ice officers is well aware of their dangers to law enforcement,” Charles added.

Source link