Google provided U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with a trove of personal data about a British student and journalist, Amandla Thomas-Johnson, in response to a subpoena that had not been approved by a judge. According to a report, the company handed over usernames, physical addresses, an itemized list of account services, IP addresses, phone numbers, subscriber details, and linked credit card and bank account numbers.
The subpoena, which reportedly included a gag order, did not specify why ICE requested the data. Thomas-Johnson stated that the demand for his information came within two hours of Cornell University informing him that the U.S. government had revoked his student visa. He had briefly attended a pro-Palestinian protest in 2024 while studying at Cornell.
This incident is a recent example of the U.S. government using administrative subpoenas, a controversial type of legal request issued directly by federal agencies without a judge’s approval, to obtain private data from technology companies. These subpoenas have targeted individuals critical of the Trump administration, including anonymous Instagram accounts that share information about ICE and people who protest the administration’s policies.
Administrative subpoenas cannot compel companies to provide the contents of emails, online searches, or precise location data. However, they can request metadata and identifiable information, such as email addresses, to de-anonymize the owner of an online account. Unlike a court order, tech companies are not legally obligated to comply with these subpoenas.
In response to these practices, the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation sent a letter to several major tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, Discord, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Reddit. The letter demands they stop providing data to the Department of Homeland Security in response to administrative subpoenas. It urges companies to challenge these demands and to notify users with enough time to contest the subpoenas themselves.
Thomas-Johnson commented on the situation, stating that we must consider what resistance looks like under conditions where both the government and large technology companies possess extensive tracking capabilities.