Thomson Reuters Corp

Thomson Reuters, headquartered in Toronto, is a data broker and information services provider. In addition to operating its news agency, Reuters, the company sells subscription-based information, software, and managed services to the legal, tax, accounting, educational, and law enforcement sectors.

Thomson Reuters supports the data-gathering apparatus of the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) by selling it database subscriptions. Between 2003 and 2021, these contracts amounted to at least $161 million with the company’s subsidiaries Thomson Reuters Special Services and West Publishing Corporation. Other than these direct contracts, Thomson Reuters products are also provided to government agencies through third-party vendors like Thundercat Technology and Motorola Solutions subsidiary Vigilant Solutions.

Since at least 2010, Thomson Reuters subsidiary West Publishing Corporation has been providing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with access to its Consolidated Lead Evaluation and Reporting (CLEAR) investigative software database, its flagship product for law enforcement. ICE has used CLEAR as part of its Law Enforcement Investigative Database Subscription (LEIDS), “a robust analytical research tool for its in-depth exploration of persons of interest and vehicles.” As part of this subscription, CLEAR provides the agency with public and proprietary information, including license plate data, real-time incarceration data, cell phone and address records, real estate ownership, credit data, professional licenses, criminal and court records, healthcare provider content, consumer and credit bureau data, and data from social media platforms.

ICE’s contracts with data brokers like Thomson Reuters have raised concerns among activists and members of Congress, who have stated that everyday activities now give immigration authorities access to people’s addresses, vehicle locations, and other personal information. Congressional members have pointed out that the company’s sale of personal data to ICE is not only an abuse of privacy, but also an abuse of power.

Similarly, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) awarded Thomson Reuters a contract for an unlimited access subscription to CLEAR in 2021. This contract expired in August 2024.

In addition to contracting directly with ICE, Thomson Reuters provides personal and proprietary information to state and local police that have information-sharing agreements with ICE. For example, in 2017, Thomson Reuters CLEAR entered into an agreement with Forensic Logic to integrate their “information and analysis capabilities” in order to provide information access to police agencies across the U.S. Forensic Logic is the manufacturer of COPLINK and LEAP, two data systems used by local, regional, and state police agencies that facilitate data sharing with ICE.

Thomson Reuters has also been a corporate partner of the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications Systems (Nlets), a network of state and local law enforcement agencies that share information. ICE reported that it “does not have the ability to query other State and Local Law Enforcement databases for criminal records, DMV records, state court records, and numerous other state databases.”

In the past, Thomson Reuters has provided ICE with a subscription to a “continuous monitoring and alert service that provides real-time jail booking data to support the identification and location” of immigrants upon their release from jail. ICE ’s Detention Compliance and Removals office awarded Thomson Reuters Special Services a $6.7 million contract for this service in 2018, renewing an earlier 2016 $1.5 million contract. Since 2021, competitor LexisNexis has provided real-time jail booking data from Appriss Insights to ICE.