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Coinbase provides data to ICE for tracking the company’s customers

  • News
  • July 1, 2022
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A new report has shown that crypto exchange Coinbase has provided Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents with a “suite of features” planned for tracking the company’s customers. The report said, ICE has been granted access to an intelligence-gathering application, named Coinbase Tracer, that provides a variety of forensic data tracking competencies. The U.S. government agency is thus using Coinbase Tracer to access customers’ historical geo-tracking data and transactions on over a dozen cryptocurrencies.

 

ICE is a government agency under the Department of Homeland Security. The primary purpose of ICE is to protect the country from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration.

Coinbase Tracer is committed to assisting ICE with tracing malicious and deceitful transactions on blockchains. The Intercept reported the tool will let ICE agents “connect addresses to real-world entities.”

Another email released by the Freedom of Information Act has shown that ICE wasn’t mandatory to agree to an End User License Agreement with Coinbase. An End User License Agreement is used to define what users can and cannot do with a company’s software products. Purportedly, this means ICE is free to use the data tracking tool as it wishes with minimal restrictions.

When Coinbase was questioned about these developments, spokesperson Natasha LaBranche merely supplied a link to the company’s website with redundancy addressing the issue. The link on the Coinbase website states “Coinbase Tracer sources its information from public sources and does not make use of Coinbase user data.” The Coinbase representative denies providing information regarding limitations on Coinbase Tracer’s use by ICE.

ICE’s access to Coinbase Tracer stalks from a contract it signed with the crypto exchange in September 2021. At the time, the contract was not clear and primarily consisted of Coinbase delivering “application development software as a service” to the agency. 

Coinbase has been in the news a lot recently and for several reasons. According to Cointelegraph, the exchange is seeking aggressive European extension to broaden its footprint. In the meantime, Goldman Sachs demoted Coinbase stock to “sell” on Monday following a more than 80% correction.

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