According to TechCrunch, Democratic lawmakers have sent warning letters to governors in Arizona, California, Colorado, and Wisconsin about their states inadvertently sharing drivers’ license data with ICE through a system called Nlets. The National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System facilitates what lawmakers call “frictionless, self-service access” to personal data for about 18,000 federal and local law enforcement agencies across the U.S. and Canada. During the year before October 1, 2025, Nlets handled over 290 million queries for DMV data, including more than 290,000 from ICE and about 600,000 from Homeland Security Investigations. The lawmakers expressed concern that ICE might be using drivers’ license photos for facial recognition through their Mobile Fortify app, which relies on 200 million photos. They’ve asked governors to block ICE access immediately, noting that several states including Illinois and New York have already restricted what data ICE can obtain through the system.
How Nlets works
Here’s the thing about Nlets – it’s been operating for two decades as this massive data exchange that most people have never heard of. Basically, it’s a nonprofit managed by state police agencies that acts as a giant switchboard for law enforcement data sharing. And the scary part? Agencies can directly access residents’ information without any state employee even knowing about it. That means your driver’s license photo, address, and other DMV data could be pulled by federal agents without your state government having any visibility into who’s looking or why.
The facial recognition concern
Lawmakers are particularly worried about how ICE might be using this data. They suspect the agency is feeding drivers’ license photos into their Mobile Fortify facial recognition app. Think about that for a second – your DMV photo, taken for the simple purpose of driving legally, could be used to identify you on the street by immigration agents. That’s a pretty massive expansion of how most people expect their driver’s license data to be used. And it raises serious questions about mission creep – when data collected for one purpose gets repurposed for something entirely different without public debate or consent.
The solution is simple
The lawmakers make a compelling case that states could easily fix this without hampering legitimate law enforcement work. They’re not asking to cut off all access – just to remove the “unfettered” part. States could require that federal agencies go through state employees who would review data requests first. This would create accountability and reduce potential abuse while still allowing access for solving serious crimes. Several states have already shown this approach works. Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Washington have recently restricted what ICE can access through Nlets. So the blueprint exists – it’s just a matter of political will.
Why this matters
Look, data sharing between law enforcement agencies isn’t inherently bad. But when it happens without transparency or oversight, we’ve got problems. The lawmakers hit on a key point when they called this an “information gap” – most state officials don’t even understand how their own data sharing systems work because of the technical complexity. That’s concerning. When government systems become so opaque that even the people running them don’t understand what’s happening, we’ve lost accountability. And in an era where data is increasingly weaponized against vulnerable communities, that lack of oversight becomes particularly dangerous. The full congressional letter to governors shows just how detailed their concerns are.
