Thomson Reuters commits to human rights assessment of ICE contracts after union investor push

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In its latest notice to shareholders, Thomson Reuters announced that it would align with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and conduct an independent, company-wide human rights impact assessment of its products and services, including contracts with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

After years of criticism, the Canadian media conglomerate that provides data services to ICE has announced that it will no longer provide data services. The immigration agency ICE has more than $100 million in contracts with Thomson Reuters, which includes raw data gathered from cellphone records, license plate recognition, and other publicly available information, as well as in-house analysts and custom systems to support the use of the data in ICE operations.

Mijente, a grassroots Latinx nonprofit organization that has led the #NoTechForICE campaign, welcomed the impact assessment announcement with cautious optimism.

The senior campaign director at Mijente said that they would be watching the outcome of the assessment closely.

The British Columbia General Employees Union (BCGEU), a Canadian union that is a minor shareholder in Thomson Reuters through its general investment fund, has been involved in shareholder activism for years. In 2020, 2021, and 2022, the BCGEU submitted shareholder proposals that highlighted privacy and human rights violations committed by ICE and suggested that Thomson Reuters adopt the UNGPs as a guiding framework for mitigating human rights risk.

The text of the most recently submitted proposal from the union was included in the appendix to the shareholder notice.

The way the union does capital stewardship is to force corporations to make progressive changes on the issues that matter to working people.

The Clear database, which is able to consolidate data pulled from public records across numerous external databases, was the reason for the activism of the BCGEU.

The Clear database came into the spotlight again after a letter was sent to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), which revealed that numerous utility companies had been sharing data with ICE through a deal that allowed credit reporting agency Equifax to re-sell.

The capital markets advisor Emma Pullman told The Verge that after initially resisting calls for a human rights assessment, Thomson Reuters was swayed by growing awareness of the dangers of third-party data sharing.

The public are very concerned about data brokers and the company has had a perfect storm.

Although the impact assessment will not contain binding resolutions, a commitment to publicly sharing the results of the assessment is seen as signaling the media company's willingness for dialogue and change.

Smith expects other data brokers to receive similar pressure from responsible investors in the future if the impact assessment results are any indication.