Icelandic host refuses US request to remove ICE employee data

The Icelandic web‑hosting company FlokiNET has declined a request from the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to take down a site containing personal details of more than 40,000 ICE and Customs and Border Protection employees.

FlokiNET said the request, sent by cybersecurity firm ZeroFox on behalf of DHS, alleged a breach of its terms of service and warned that the data placed individuals at risk of harassment, stalking and physical harm. The company noted that the request concerned the domain icepi.cx, which had compiled the information and was subsequently suspended by its registrar, with the data moving to another domain.

In a public statement, FlokiNET defended its decision, arguing that federal officers carrying out enforcement programmes are not private individuals and that the public has a legitimate interest in knowing who is performing that work and under whose authority.

The database was first published by the leak‑publishing group Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets) after a hacker collective calling itself the “Department of Peace” claimed responsibility for obtaining the DHS data. Despite the removal attempt, the information has been replicated on other sites, making complete erasure unlikely.

The incident follows previous US government pressure on tech platforms to block apps that track ICE agents, a move criticised by Democrats and free‑speech advocates as a potential infringement of First Amendment rights.

Source: Al Jazeera. Photo: Lyn Ong / Pexels.