Featured image of post Border Patrol's use of Amazon's Wickr messaging app draws scrutiny.

Border Patrol's use of Amazon's Wickr messaging app draws scrutiny.

In October, Laurence Brewer, the chief records officer of the National Archives and Records Administration, told officials at U.S.

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In October, Laurence Brewer, the chief records officer of the National Archives and Records Administration, told officials at U.S.

Highlights

  • U.S.
  • Customs and Border Protection has spent more than $1.6 million on Wickr since 2020, public procurement records show.
  • Wickr was bought by Amazon’s cloud-computing division last June and has contracts with a number of government agencies.
  • Watchdog group CREW filed a lawsuit against CBP last month after it failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records about its implementation of Wickr.
  • A spokesperson for CBP said the agency has only used the app in “several small-scale pilots” since 2019, she declined to specify how the app is being used by CBP.