Google Broke Its Promise to Me. Now ICE Has My Data. | Electronic Frontier Foundation
In 2025, Google gave Amandla Thomas-Johnson's data to ICE without giving him the chance to challenge the subpoena, breaking a nearly decade-long promise to notify users before handing their data to law enforcement.
Español In September 2024, Amandla Thomas-Johnson was a Ph.D. candidate studying in the U.S. on a student visa when he briefly attended a pro-Palestinian protest. In April 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent Google an administrative subpoena requesting his data. The next month, Google gave Thomas-Johnson's information to ICE without giving him the chance to challenge the subpoena, breaking a nearly decade-long promise to notify users before handing their data to law enforcement. Google names a handful of exceptions to this promise (such as if Google receives a gag order from a
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