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Tech Industry Transit Systems Endanger Immigrants, Advocates Fear by Whitney Curry Wimbish
Everyone aboard the M4 bus in Upper Manhattan this spring was staring at a woman in her early forties as she tried to prove she had paid the fare. Two transit cops had stopped the bus to check that no one had snuck on without paying (as more than half of bus riders do, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority), the biggest contributor to the nearly $1 billion in lost revenue last year.
The cops were looming over the woman, who told her story to the Prospect on condition of anonymity. They were using a handheld device to scan her smartphone, which she’d tapped on a card reader to pay the fare with Apple Pay. But the cop’s scanner kept pinging her digital bus card, which had run out of money, the reason she’d used Apple Pay instead. The cops told her to pull up her payment history so they could check recent transactions. She’d never done that before, she told the Prospect, so it took a minute. At the time, all she cared about was getting the information so everyone could be on their way. But now she’s wondering, what data did they mine from her phone? And how will they use it?
That’s what civil rights and immigrant advocates said they want to know, too, as more public transportation systems across the country install tap-and-go fare payment kiosks, especially those operated by private equity–owned defense contractor Cubic Corporation. The company runs the payment systems for transit systems in several cities targeted for mass immigration raids: In addition to New York City, it contracts for Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and municipalities in Washington state.
Cubic executives—all of whom have a background at major weapons manufacturers—signed a partnership late last year with Palantir, the artificial intelligence company that built ImmigrationOS for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to help federal agents hunt immigrants.
The cops were looming over the woman, who told her story to the Prospect on condition of anonymity. They were using a handheld device to scan her smartphone, which she’d tapped on a card reader to pay the fare with Apple Pay. But the cop’s scanner kept pinging her digital bus card, which had run out of money, the reason she’d used Apple Pay instead. The cops told her to pull up her payment history so they could check recent transactions. She’d never done that before, she told the Prospect, so it took a minute. At the time, all she cared about was getting the information so everyone could be on their way. But now she’s wondering, what data did they mine from her phone? And how will they use it?
That’s what civil rights and immigrant advocates said they want to know, too, as more public transportation systems across the country install tap-and-go fare payment kiosks, especially those operated by private equity–owned defense contractor Cubic Corporation. The company runs the payment systems for transit systems in several cities targeted for mass immigration raids: In addition to New York City, it contracts for Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and municipalities in Washington state.
Cubic executives—all of whom have a background at major weapons manufacturers—signed a partnership late last year with Palantir, the artificial intelligence company that built ImmigrationOS for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to help federal agents hunt immigrants.
https://prospect.org/2026/07/06/tech-industry-transit-systems-endanger-immigrants-cubic-corp/]
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