Crowdsourcing app for monitoring Ice disappears from Apple store. Here's what happened

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) is at the centre of much controversy in the United States.

While US President Donald Trump had promised to go after criminals, the agency instead seems to be targeting people who have been in the United States for decades without any incident.

As a result, people are coming up with ways of countering Ice. One of the ways was a crowdsourcing app called ICEBlock, which keeps tabs on the activity of Ice agents.

However, now Apple has taken down the app – seemingly after facing flak from US authorities.

But what happened? What do we know?

Let’s take a closer look:

What happened?

On Friday, ICEBlock, a free iPhone-only app that lets users anonymously report and monitor activity by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers, disappeared from Apple’s App Store.

“We just received a message from Apple’s App Review that #ICEBlock has been removed from the App Store due to ‘objectionable content’,” the developer wrote on a social media post. “The only thing we can imagine is this is due to pressure from the Trump Admin. We have responded and we’ll fight this!”

The developer said last month that it had more than 1 million users. Even though it has been removed from the app marketplace, those who have already downloaded the app should still be able to use it.

ICEBlock, a free iPhone-only app that lets users anonymously report and monitor activity by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers, disappeared from Apple’s App Store. AP

Apple claimed it removed apps like ICEBlock due to the potential for risks that were raised by law enforcement.

Officials said last month that a gunman who opened fire on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas had searched for apps that tracked the presence of Ice agents.

“We created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover apps,” the company said in a statement. “Based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock, we have removed it and similar apps from the App Store.”

Downloads of apps similar to ICEBlock have spiked since the Trump administration stepped up immigration enforcement with surprise raids. The technology has come under fire from authorities after agents were targeted.

In a July interview on Fox News, US Attorney General Pam Bondi said crowdsourced apps that allow people to communicate about the location of law enforcement officers are not allowed, specifically referring to ICEBlock developer Joshua Aaron.

“We are looking at him and he better watch out because that’s not a protected speech,” Bondi said at the time.

ICEBlock and other crowdsourcing apps are the ones being targeted, but crowdsourced technology has become common in the app store, and is still available through other apps.

Navigation apps such as Waze or Google Maps for Android phones have been in use for years. Part of their draw is that users are alerted to police speed traps by other drivers. Users of those apps have suggested they can be used to post updates about “icy conditions.”

Waze and Google Maps have not yet been targeted by US officials.

With inputs from agencies