A multimillion-dollar contract with Appriss Insights LLC, which runs the state’s crime victim notification system, contains a provision that allows the company to share jail data with third parties, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, immigrant advocates say.The state’s victim-notific ation system known as VINE alerts crime victims when someone is released from jail, transferred or experiences a change in custody status. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul signed the current contract with Appriss in May 2021, initially committing approximately $6.07 million. The contract runs through June 2028.A clause in that contract allows Appriss to share jail records with third parties. Privacy advocates warn this creates a pathway for information collected by Illinois jails to enter commercial databases used by ICE to identify and locate people for immigration enforcement.Illinois’ sanctuary laws limit state and local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities— including sharing information about anyone held at a local jail or prison — unless that person has a federal criminal warrant. But advocates say even though the state isn’t sharing this information directly, the loophole in the state’s contract offers a back door around the sanctuary laws.“This is why we’ve been raising alarms for years,” Jacinta González, a former policy director at Mijente who is now head of programs at MediaJustice, told the Sun-Times in June. “When these loopholes are allowed to exist, they’re going to lead to concrete harm. They’re going to lead to people being detained and people being deported.How ICE uses jail recordsFederal procurement records show that in 2021, ICE sought access to Appriss records that contained information about bookings and incarcerations from more than 2,800 jails and correctional facilities nationwide. In 2022, The Guardian reported that ICE paid about $4.8 million to access Appriss data.As of November 2024, 88 county jails, 96 court systems and 31 Illinois Department of Corrections-affiliated facilities participate in the statewide victim-notification system, according to a report from the attorney general’s office.Privacy advocates have argued for years that data provided to Appriss could move beyond state and county systems and into commercial databases like LexisNexis that are accessible to agencies like ICE. They allege ICE is able to access information that includes names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, custody status dates, release information, court hearing details and other sensitive personal data. Advocates say ICE’s contract with LexisNexis includes an add-on for a database called Justice Intelligence, a product offered by Appriss that collects release data from U.S. jails and prisons and makes it easily searchable.“Basically, this is a loophole paragraph,” said Steven J. Kochevar, an attorney and law fellow at the University of Chicago, who has reviewed the state’s contract. Kochevar said the language in the contract leaves unclear exactly how Appriss may use the data it collects.Without effective restrictions, companies can combine government records with information from other sources into commercial databases sold to customers, including government agencies, he explained.“They package it and they sell it through these systems like LexisNexis,” he said.Such databases can combine booking records with addresses and other personal information, creating profiles of people regardless of immigration status, including those arrested but never convicted.“It’s not like one straight pipeline,” Kochevar said. “They [ICE] get a bunch of data in a lot of different ways.”In a statement, a spokesperson for the attorney general’s office said they were committed to protecting residents’ information from improper use, including for immigration enforcement.“We are engaged in ongoing conversations with Appriss Insights LLC,” the spokesperson said.The attorney general’s office did not say whether information from the statewide system had reached ICE and they did not identify any specific restrictions preventing access to the data. The office would not answer questions about whether the attorney general plans to change or retain the contract’s data-sharing provision.Appriss also did not respond to questions about its contract with the state.Cook County as a modelLast month, Cook County moved to strengthen protections against this type of data sharing with ICE. Commissioners approved an ordinance restricting how county employees and contractors share residents’ information with ICE and data brokers.For Fred Tsao, senior policy counsel at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, the county ordinance addresses a basic concern: information residents provide to government offices being used to target them.“We wanted to make sure that that information that we are providing to the county — at the very least, to county offices — does not get weaponized against us for immigration enforcement purposes,” he said.Tsao said Cook County’s ordinance could provide a model for restrictions elsewhere in Illinois.Laura Rivera, an attorney with Just Futures Law said the ordinance doesn’t solve the problem of data sharing elsewhere in Illinois.“The fact remains that this company is still obtaining the personal information of people across other parts of Illinois, and that information is being shared with ICE through this contract,” Rivera said. “So there’s a lot of work to do.” Related Illinois prosecutors fed ICE information about immigrants, leading to arrests and deportations Chicago police say they don’t ‘assist in immigration enforcement’ but have turned over key records to feds To protect immigrant students, a Chicago-area college told Flock to remove its cameras. The company refused. ...read more read less