Coinbase Is Selling Data on Crypto and ‘Geotracking’ to ICE

Coinbase Tracer, the analytics arm of the cryptocurrency trade Coinbase, has signed a contract with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement that might permit the company entry to quite a lot of options and knowledge caches, together with “historical geo tracking data.”

Coinbase Tracer, in accordance with the website, is for governments, crypto companies, and monetary establishments. It permits these shoppers the power to hint transactions throughout the blockchain. It can be used to “investigate illicit activities including money laundering and terrorist financing” and “screen risky crypto transactions to ensure regulatory compliance.”

The deal was initially signed September 2021, however the contract was solely now obtained by watchdog group Tech Inquiry. The deal was made for a most quantity of $1.37 million, and we knew on the time that this was a 3 12 months contract for Coinbase’s analytic software program. The now revealed contract permits us to look extra into what this deal entails.

This deal will permit ICE to trace transactions made by twelve completely different currencies, together with Ethereum, Tether, and Bitcoin. Other options embody “Transaction demixing and shielded transaction analysis,” which seems to be geared toward stopping customers from laundering funds or hiding transactions. Another function is the power to “Multi-hop link analysis for incoming and outgoing funds” which might give ICE perception into the switch of the currencies. The most mysterious one is entry to “historical geo tracking data,” and we’re not sure how location knowledge pertains to crypto or what ICE could use it for on this context. (ICE has not but responded to Gizmodo’s request for a remark).

This will not be the primary time Coinbase has made a take care of authorities companies. In August 2021, Coinbase signed a contract with ICE to supply the company with licenses for his or her analytics software program, however that contract was price $29,000. And in April 2021, Coinbase bought the license from Coinbase Tracer to the Secret Service for below $50,000. An analogous deal was accomplished the 12 months earlier than that in May 2020.

Coinbase mentioned that the knowledge to be offered by the analytic software program is the trade of buyer knowledge.

“All Coinbase Tracer features use data that is fully sourced from online, publicly available data,” the spokesperson advised Coindesk, “And do not include any personally identifiable information for anyone, or any proprietary Coinbase user data.” Coinbase has not but responded to Gizmodo’s request for a remark.