A coda to Tuesday’s post on SPARC’s Elsevier report. Here’s Sam Biddle, writing for The Intercept on Elsevier corporate sibling LexisNexis Risk Solutions:
The popular data broker LexisNexis began selling face recognition services and personal location data to U.S. Customs and Border Protection late last year, according to contract documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
According to the documents, obtained by the advocacy group Just Futures Law and shared with The Intercept, LexisNexis Risk Solutions began selling surveillance tools to the border enforcement agency in December 2022. The $15.9 million contract includes a broad menu of powerful tools for locating individuals throughout the United States using a vast array of personal data, much of it obtained and used without judicial oversight.
Are any of the LexisNexis tools on offer drawing on data gathered through Elsevier’s ScienceDirect? Who knows—there’s no real answer in the contract documents nor the ass-covering LexisNexis FAQ page.