Federal immigration enforcement agency U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has quietly moved ahead with a new surveillance initiative that could affect almost anyone using social media — including students, educators, and families. According to multiple procurement records and reporting, ICE has signed a contract worth $5.7 million for up to five years to license a tech platform called Zignal Labs.

The system being procured can monitor, aggregate and analyze up to 8 billion social-media posts per day. The contract reportedly gives ICE access to “curated detection feeds” built from this massive data stream. One independent journalist, Aaron Parnas, is quoted saying the system “has historically been used by the Israeli military and the Pentagon and now it’s going to be used by ICE.” While Parnas’s full work is still under review, multiple outlets note Zignal’s prior engagements in defense and public-sector sectors. Why should students care? Your posts may be included. Social media conversations, public posts, comments or other open-source content — are all fair game under the system’s description. So what you think is just a “fun” or private comment could be aggregated into a huge data set.

Free speech and immigrant rights are at risk. Civil-liberties organizations warn that mass monitoring can chill speech: people may refrain from expressing opinions if they know they’re under watch. The immigrant student community may feel especially vulnerable. For example, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has raised specific concerns about how this tech might target immigrants or non-citizens.