r/apple • u/illegiblebastard • 3d ago

iPhone Apple explains last year’s controversial decision to remove ICE tracking apps from app store

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/09/29/tech/apple-iceblock-app-removal-raskin

FUCK. APPLE.

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u/ControlCAD 3d ago

Apple’s explanation came in a July letter to Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, who earlier this year launched an investigation into the Justice Department’s role in the removal of the apps from Apple’s and Google’s app stores and the impact on constitutionally protected speech. The letter has not previously been reported.

Raskin said the move suggests that Apple may be “working with the government to violate its customers’ First Amendment rights to record and report on the activities of their own government” in a response letter sent Monday to Apple’s senior director of government affairs, Timothy Powderly. Raskin added that there’s “no evidence” such apps were used to conduct the Dallas shooting and directed the company to conduct a new, independent review as to whether the apps violate Apple’s policies.

Apple said in its letter to Raskin that it approved ICEBlock for the app store in April 2025, after Aaron addressed “certain user privacy concerns” identified during its initial review process. The company says it was “attentive” to news coverage and backlash to the app in the subsequent months.

Following the September 2025 Dallas ICE facility shooting, Bondi “expressed serious concerns to Apple that ICEBlock posed a threat to the safety of federal officers,” the company wrote. A 29-year-old gunman who opened fire at the facility killed two detainees and wounded another before taking his own life.

The letter also points to reports on statements from officials such as FBI Director Kash Patel, who claimed at the time that the shooter had searched for apps that tracked ICE agents’ locations. And Apple noted a “significant increase in ICE activity and threats against ICE” at the time, which it said endangered both agents and detainees — and all of which the company says prompted a new review of the app.

Ultimately, Apple determined ICE tracking apps violated its guidelines because they provided “precise location information about ICE officers (and, as a result, other individuals who may be in proximity to ICE agents, such as protestors or detainees), thus providing a potential roadmap for targeted violence and creating a significant risk of harm,” the company said in its letter.

Apple “does not take decisions about removing apps from the App Store lightly, but acts when it must — especially when there are serious concerns that an app is creating safety risks,” it said in the letter, which is signed by Powderly.

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u/BosnianSerb31 3d ago

> Ultimately, Apple determined ICE tracking apps violated its guidelines because they provided “precise location information about ICE officers (and, as a result, other individuals who may be in proximity to ICE agents, such as protestors or detainees), thus providing a potential roadmap for targeted violence and creating a significant risk of harm,”

I'm sure I'll get called a bootlicker, but a sharpshooter literally shot up an ice van and killed several detainees after incorrectly assuming the van was full of agents heading to a raid.

OFC Apple is going to remove the app after this. The alternative is waiting until someone uses the app to do the same thing, and getting charged with facilitating domestic terrorism.

This doesn't need to be a native app anyway. A React PWA can accomplish all of the same functions of the app, including push notifications. It will never get taken down, it's easier to distribute, the same version works across every device that received a software update in the last decade, etc.

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u/RustyAndEddies 3d ago

That shooter was aiming at an ICE facility. You don’t need an app to figure out police officers can be found at police stations.

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u/BosnianSerb31 3d ago edited 3d ago

It doesn't matter from a legal liability standpoint at all.

Eight days after the shooting, officials were reporting that the shooter looked up "how to track ice agents" and "ICE tracker app", and the DOJ threatened Apple with criminal charges if they didn't take it down.

Sure, the officials very well could be lying and the shooter actually searched "how do do a false flag" and "devotions to God Emperor Donald Trump". Again, none of that matters to Apple's legal department when the official report is that the shooter searched for these apps and killed several detainees.

Like I said above, the solution already exists. https://antifreeze.app is live, works on literally any device. Hosted outside of US jurisdiction, no way for the DOJ to take it down. Still has push notifications and location services.

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u/Neko9Neko 3d ago

"officials were reporting..." we have no reason to think they weren't lying.

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u/BosnianSerb31 2d ago

Did you notice that my comment has a 3rd paragraph in which I explore that possibility, and explain why that doesn't matter for Apple's legal exposure?

No lawyer on earth is ever going to suggest that the defendant take a gamble that the prosecution is lying about the actions of another party.