A (0:02)

Today on the Daily Scoop Podcast from the Scoop News Group, House Democrats eye new limits on mobile biometric surveillance apps for DHS and the army is set to kill Nipper at multiple locations in a commercial Internet experiment. It's Tuesday, January 20, 2026. Welcome to the Daily Scoop Podcast, where you'll hear the latest news and trends facing government leaders. I'm the host of the Daily Scoop Podcast, Billy Mitchell. Thanks so much for joining me. And now let's dive into the day's top headlines. The Department of Homeland Security would need to follow stricter guidelines when using mobile biometric applications under legislation introduced last Thursday by the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee and other Democrats. Known as the Realigning Mobile Phone Biometrics for American Privacy Protection act, the bill seeks to prohibit the use of such technology except for identification at ports of entry, bars DHS from sharing the apps with non law enforcement agencies, and implements a 12 hour storage limit on data in the apps. The legislation points to the DHS app mobile fortify other mobile identification apps and potential successor apps as the prime targets. If the bill gains ground, DHS would need to remove the technology from any non DHS IT systems and workflows outside the ports of entry. Mississippi's Benny Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a press release accompanying the bill's introduction that, quote, dhs would not be conducting surveillance by experimenting with Americans faces and fingerprints in the field, especially with unproven and biased technology, we can secure the homeland and respect the rights and privacy of Americans at the same time. The bill's other co sponsors are Democratic Reps. Lou Correa of California, Sri Thanadar of Michigan, Yvette Clark of New York, Grace Meng of New York and Adriana Espelat of New York. In written statements, members pointed to the concerns around privacy, constitutional violations, civil liberties and the technology's potential deficiencies. Clark said that under no circumstances should the federal government install its full faith in an untested, untrustworthy technology with proven biases and dubious capabilities for matters as critical as immigration enforcement. The proposed bill is the latest attempt at curbing DHS's continued and expanding use of biometric and advanced technologies, particularly in immigration type settings. Just before the new year, nearly 50 House Democrats pushed back on a DHS proposed rule that would broaden biometric data collection, allowing its reuse across migration and naturalization processes. In that December letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and U.S. citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edloe, lawmakers advocated for cybersecurity protections, retention limits, independent auditing and access controls. Now moving on to other news, the Army's top civilian leader said the service will kill Nipper at multiple locations, likely starting next month, in an experiment to see if commercial Internet solutions would be more effective. Speaking to soldiers at a town hall at Fort Drum, New York. On Monday, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said, quote, we're we're going to bring you down to the commercial Internet, and we think it will solve all sorts of problems. If the evaluation is successful, the army will scale it across the service, he added. Nipper, which stands for Non Classified Internet Protocol Router, is the military's communication network for unclassified information. Defense Department personnel can access commercial browsers or email through Nipper, for example, but the network is owned and secured by the military. An army spokesperson told Defense Coup that the service is evaluating a shift from NPR to a commercial solution that can handle Data at impact level 5. IL5, as it's known, includes controlled, unclassified information, according to the Defense Information Systems Agency, which is considered sensitive and necessary to protect but does not meet criteria for classification. The spokesperson said that the evaluation is intended to cut costs, boost performance and enhance cybersecurity. They added that the effort was in coordination with the Pentagon's office of the cio, DISA and other military services. Driscoll went on to say during his speech that all the different networks that the army has are insanity, referring to Nipper, Sipper and jwix, the latter two being classified systems. Driscoll said of the network evaluation, if it works, we're going to scale it throughout the Army. If it doesn't work, we're going to try another experiment until we figure out how to fix this problem. Details about the experiment are scant. So far, neither Driscoll nor the army spokesperson identified the locations where this experiment would occur or which commercial solutions the service was considering, though Driscoll did indicate that this evaluation will happen in a couple of places.