Trump Administration Seeks Takedown of Leaked ICE Personnel Data; Icelandic Host Refuses

On Thursday, an Icelandic web hosting company called FlokiNET published a letter it had received from the US government, or more precisely from a firm acting for it. The letter came from the cybersecurity company ZeroFox, writing on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and it asked FlokiNET to take down a website holding information on tens of thousands of DHS employees.

The letter accused FlokiNET of breaking its own terms of service by hosting a "stolen" employee dataset, and it asked the company to "remove or disable" the material. It also made a claim about danger: the content was live, it said, and put more than 40,000 identifiable individuals at risk of harassment, stalking and physical harm.

According to FlokiNET, the letter concerned a single domain, icepi.cx. The site compiled information about employees across a range of DHS agencies, among them Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Both agencies have been under intense scrutiny since President Donald Trump began his mass deportation campaign in 2025.

FlokiNET says it refused to comply and defended that decision in a public statement. "Federal officers carrying out an enforcement programme are not private individuals while they are carrying it out," the company wrote. "The public has a legitimate interest in knowing who is doing that work, under whose authority, and in which office." The refusal did not settle the matter, though. The website's registrar ultimately suspended the domain, and the employee information has since reappeared on a different one.

The database first surfaced on Wednesday, when Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets) posted it. The group showcases leaked government data and has previously released emails from the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as well as material from the Israeli Ministry of Justice and from police departments in the United States. A hacker group calling itself the "Department of Peace" has claimed responsibility for obtaining and sharing the DHS data. Since the first publication, other groups have spread the information elsewhere, including through icepi.cx, so it is unlikely to be fully scrubbed from the internet.

The takedown request fits a pattern. Last year the US Department of Justice pressured major technology companies, Apple among them, to remove apps that track ICE agents, including one called ICEBlock. Democrats and free-speech advocates pushed back, arguing the public has a right to report on ICE's movements. Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin wrote to Apple that blocking such apps at the government's request raised the possibility that the company was helping the government violate its customers' First Amendment right to record and report on official activity, and he asked it to review the decision.

The administration has also often declined to identify DHS agents involved in particular operations, citing safety risks. Immigration agents have taken steps of their own to hide their identities during operations, including wearing face masks or plain clothes. Human rights groups and immigration advocates say this leaves them little recourse when they allege excessive force or impropriety during raids.

The record they point to is serious. Since Trump's second swearing-in, at least 25 people have faced gunfire from immigration agents, and six of those shootings were fatal. Other cases have involved alleged civil liberties violations, including unlawful arrests and racial profiling, along with contested tactics such as car ramming and tackling.

With the data now spread across multiple sites, a full removal looks unlikely, and the dispute over who may be named, and who may be shielded, is likely to continue.