Attachment 11 - ICE AI Contract Language 2025-08-15.pdf

ICE AI Contract Language

Last Updated: July 16, 2025

1. Compliance with Federal Laws and Policies; AI Use Limitations. The Contractor shall ensure any AI system or service provided complies with all applicable federal, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) AI Policies, Directives, and Memos, as well as ICE AI governance requirements. The AI solution must align with the U.S. Constitution and all relevant laws and regulations, including privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. Specifically:

a. The Contractor must stay current and comply with any updates or new AI policy and AI governance requirements issued during the contract term.

b. AI used to support law enforcement decisions or civil actions must include technical and operational safeguards to:

i. Establish human-in-the loop oversight.

ii. Document or label AI-generated content.

c. For AI used in determinations impacting individuals (e.g., risk assessments, identity verification), the Contractor must cooperate with federal, DHS, and ICE procedures for notice and appeal, providing explanations or adjusting outputs upon error findings.

d. The contract prohibits use of AI that violates DHS policy, including:

i. Using AI outputs as sole evidence for punitive or enforcement actions.

ii. Utilizing AI to make or support decisions on improper bases (e.g., predicting future behavior or emotional state leading to discriminatory or unlawful actions).

e. The Contractor must follow AI Use Case approval, Security Authorization, and ICE AI governance and AI risk management processes and requirements before developing, piloting, testing, or deploying AI in ICE environments or using ICE data.

f. The Contractor is responsible for complying with AI Security Control Baseline requirements.

2. Traceability, Auditability, and Transparency. The Contractor shall design, build, document, and operate the AI system or service to be explainable, auditable, and transparent. At a minimum, the Contractor shall:

a. Document the provenance of data used for AI training, fine-tuning, or operation.

b. Ensure data used for AI training, fine tuning, or operation was lawfully obtained and processed.

c. Document the provenance of any third-party AI models used (source, version, etc.).

d. Provide comprehensive system diagrams and inventories that map the AI systems’ API and system connections, data flows, and technical components.

e. Provide comprehensive documentation explaining how the AI system works, including any models and algorithms.

f. Ensure the AI system, where applicable, provides clear explanations or reasoning for its decisions or predictions.

g. Ensure AI outputs are traceable, auditable, meet evidentiary standards, and are explainable to non-technical users. Additionally:

i. Ensure GenAI inputs and their outputs are logged and preserved in line with federal, DHS, and ICE retention policies.

3. Data Rights and Solution Ownership. The contract shall clearly delineate data and intellectual property rights to protect ICE’s interests in the AI solution and associated data. Specifically:

a. All data provided by the Government or generated through the AI system belongs to the Government. The Contractor is prohibited from:

i. Using nonpublic agency data and outputted results to train publicly or commercially available AI algorithms, or any non-ICE systems outside the contract’s scope without ICE’s authorization.

ii. Using Government-furnished data or AI-generated data for purposes outside the contract without ICE authorization.

iii. Sharing, disclosing, or transferring Government data, AI models, or AI-outputs with third parties without ICE’s authorization.

b. The Contractor must grant the Government appropriate license rights in any custom-developed AI models, software, or deliverables. Intellectual Property (IP) rights will be negotiated consistent with federal law and the agency’s mission needs, aiming to avoid vendor lock-in. The Government may require broad or unlimited rights to certain deliverables (including source code or trained model files) for long-term use, maintenance, or integration of the AI solution.

c. ICE maintains ownership over and the Contractor must provide ICE access to:

i. Any derivative outputs of AI developed under the Contract, including data processed using AI.

ii. Any models trained, fine-tuned, or otherwise developed using ICE data.

4. Prevention Against Vendor Lock-In: To promote a competitive marketplace and long-term sustainability of ICE’s AI capabilities, the Contractor shall:

a. Utilize industry-standards, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), and protocols wherever possible to ensure interoperability and combability within and between ICE and DHS systems.

b. Ensure inputs and outputs of the AI system are exportable in a non-proprietary, machine-readable format to facilitate integration or transfer of functions to other systems.

c. Where custom components are developed, deliver sufficient technical documentation and access to components (including source code, model weights, or other foundational code) to enable ICE’s long-term use of the AI system.

d. In the case of transitioning the AI system to another contractor or in-house provider, the Contractor must support knowledge transfer and provide all necessary documentation, models, data, derivative outputs, and software to enable sustained system use.

i. The Contract must also document estimated costs and related steps that will be required to exit the Contract.

5. Security, Testing & Evaluation, and Continuous Monitoring: The Contractor shall implement rigorous security and risk management measures for the AI solution, per federal standards, ICE procedures, and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance on AI risks. Key requirements include:

a. If designated as a High Impact AI system, complying with all required AI Risk Management practices (per OMB, DHS, and ICE policy), unless officially granted a waiver.

b. Before deploying the AI system: The Contractor must provide testing and evaluation artifacts and support (including providing requisite access) to enable ICE independent test and evaluation processes to evaluate factors such as, but not limited to:

i. AI system performance, including accuracy and reliability.

ii. Compliance with DHS AI Security Controls.

iii. Resiliency against AI cybersecurity and operational threats, including system misuse/abuse.

iv. Completion of an AI impact assessment and/or other risk assessment procedures, in line with federal, DHS, and ICE policy and practices.

v. Fulfillment of functional, business, and technical requirements.

c. While operating the AI system: The Contractor must re-test system performance, security, resiliency, and abuse/mis-use vulnerabilities before deploying new AI models, fine-tuned models, or other changes to AI systems that require Change Requests.

d. Audit and Logging: Ensure compliance with DHS and ICE AI auditing and logging requirements, including, but not limited to audit and logging the access, usage, and modification of:

i. AI Guardrails deployed in GenAI systems.

ii. Models, including parameters and weights.

iii. AI system inputs and outputs (including prompts).

iv. Additional requirements as determined by federal, DHS, and ICE policy.

e. Continuous Monitoring: The Contractor shall implement continuous monitoring mechanisms to detect and respond to anomalies, biases, or performance degradation in AI systems. Additionally:

i. The Contractor shall establish protocols for the timely remediation of identified issues, including the potential suspension of AI system operations if necessary.

ii. The Contractor shall comply with all continuous monitoring requirements, per federal, DHS, and ICE policy.