• by Colin Kirkland , October 3, 2025

Apple has removed ICEBlock -- an encrypted app used to label and track the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers -- from its app store, according to a post on Bluesky by ICEBlock’s developer.

“We just received a message from Apple's App Review that #ICEBlock has been removed from the App Store due to 'objectionable content'," the developer wrote. “The only thing we can imagine is this is due to pressure from the Trump Admin.”

The developer goes on to state that it has responded to Apple and plans to fight the decision.

Per its website, ICEBlock invites users to report sightings of ICE officers and check other users’ reports in a five-mile radius.

To protect the leakage of users’ personal data, the app developer claims that it refrains from collecting any user data, “making it impossible to trace reports back to individual users.”

The anonymous ICE-tracking app gained popularity over the summer, after U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called the app an "obstruction of justice" on her X account. Attorney General Pam Bondi then claimed the app was “not a protected speech.”

Directly following these comments, ICEBlock soared to the top of the App Store, with the majority of its users based in Los Angeles, where ICE raids were rampant at the time. 

On Friday, Bondi told Fox News Digital that the Trump administration ordered Apple to remove the app from its App Store and Apple complied. 

“ICEBlock is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs, and violence against law enforcement is an intolerable red line that cannot be crossed,” Bondi said.

Within the app, there was a message that consistently reminded users that ICEBlock “is not to be used for the purpose of inciting violence or interfering with law enforcement,” according to previous reports by CNN.

“We created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover apps,” Apple said in response to the ICEBlock removal. “Based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock, we have removed it and similar apps from the App Store.”

Since its launch in April, ICEBlock has been downloaded over 1 million times, according to app tracking firm Appfigures.