"Technology is never neutral; its ethics lie in its deployment." Discuss this in the context of Big Tech's contracts with immigration enforcement agencies.

Cloud, analytics and data platforms are dual-use. Code that tracks cross-border crime can just as easily track migrants. The protests against Salesforce's links with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) show that a technology's ethics are judged by how it is deployed [1].

The case for neutrality

• Lawful client: ICE is a federal agency created after 9/11 to tackle cross-border crime and illegal immigration. Supplying it is routine government business [1].
• Democratic legitimacy: Immigration policy belongs to elected governments and courts. Letting unelected firms veto contracts would privatise policy.
• Agency lies with the state: Firms sell tools, but it is officers who make arrests.

Why deployment decides the ethics

• Scale changes character: ICE received billions in new funding in Trump's second term. Arrests spiked and violence reached citizens, e.g., the killing of Renée Good in Minneapolis (January 2026) [1].
• Known harm ends neutrality: The UN human rights chief flagged enforcement in hospitals and schools, weak due process, strained family unity and rising deaths in custody [2]. Once harm is public, continuing to supply is a choice.
• Corporate duty: The UNGPs' "respect" pillar requires human rights due diligence [3]. OHCHR's B-Tech guidance extends this duty to how technology is deployed and used [4].
• Opacity erodes due process: UN Special Rapporteur report A/75/590 (2020) found that states and private actors use border technologies with little regard for rights, and that migrants bear most of the burden [5]. An algorithmic flag cannot be cross-examined.
• Stakeholder verdict: Employee discomfort, customer protests and boycott calls show that markets also apply the deployment test [1].

Way forward

• Firms: Carry out due diligence before signing or renewing enforcement contracts, and add use-restriction clauses.
• States: Make published human rights impact assessments mandatory before buying surveillance tools [4].
• India: State purchase of such tools should meet the Puttaswamy (2017) tests of legality, legitimate aim and proportionality.

Technology amplifies whoever wields it, so neutrality ends where foreseeable harm begins. Building due diligence into contracts, as the UNGPs envisage, lets firms serve lawful governments while upholding dignity, due process and SDG 16's promise of just, accountable institutions.