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A member of the Enforcement and Removal Operations of ICE stands guard while a man is detained by agents during an immigration raid in Minneapolis on Sunday.Leah Millis/Reuters
Hootsuite Inc. chief executive officer Irina Novoselsky defended the Vancouver tech company’s contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the United States, telling employees the deal will stand so long as the agency abides by the terms of service.
Ms. Novoselsky said on an internal all-hands call Thursday that Hootsuite will work with any customer that follows the usage guidelines for its software, which can manage social-media accounts and provide sentiment analysis, or “social listening,” as Hootsuite calls it. The company has terminated relationships with customers as recently as a few months ago for violations, she said on the call, a recording of which was obtained by The Globe and Mail.
“We did nothing wrong here,” Ms. Novoselsky told employees. “ICE is a customer within the public affairs group, so we help them from our social-media management perspective.”
Hootsuite’s terms of service prohibit use of its platform for law enforcement, surveillance and tracking.
Vancouver social-media company Hootsuite looking to work with ICE to ‘build trust’
The Globe on Tuesday reported details of Hootsuite’s business with ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), federal agencies charged with carrying out U.S. President Donald Trump’s widespread efforts to deport undocumented immigrants. Hootsuite secured a US$95,000 pilot project with ICE in September, according to internal communications obtained by The Globe. Government contractor Seneca Strategic Partners LLC in New York has a contract with the Department of Homeland Security to use Hootsuite for social-media management, according to public records.
In September, 2020, Hootsuite cancelled a contract with ICE in response to backlash from company employees opposed to the deal. The decision was made by then-CEO Tom Keiser, who said publicly the deal had “created a divided company, and this is not the kind of company I came to lead.”
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Irina Novoselsky, chief executive officer of Hootsuite.HO/The Canadian Press
Ms. Novoselsky, who became CEO in January, 2023, is taking a different approach, despite the fact some employees are concerned the company is doing business with ICE again. “We do business with a lot of polarizing non-profits and other organizations, and as long as these enterprises follow our terms of service, that’s our line,” she said on the call.
When one employee asked what he should say in response to customer enquiries or negative feedback to the ICE deal on social media, Ms. Novoselsky said that engaging publicly was not the right thing to do.
“There’s no winning here,” she replied. “If we go and answer it, there will just be more news cycles.” Engaging with the issue, she added, “won’t change the narrative.”
Hootsuite did not respond to a request for comment and has not addressed the matter publicly.
The deals with ICE and CBP could prove to be lucrative at a time when revenue growth is challenging for Hootsuite. A sales rep described the pilot with ICE as a “Trojan Horse Deal” that could turn into a seven-figure contract in an e-mail seen by The Globe. The author also mentioned travelling to Washington with “Irina” to brief ICE on how Hootsuite “can support their mission.”
According to a fall 2025 conference call transcript seen by The Globe, Hootsuite employees and a representative from CBP discussed creating dashboards to monitor online discussion of ICE enforcement actions in specific cities in real time, and another one to gauge sentiment about CBP commissioner Rodney Scott.
Ms. Novoselsky acknowledged on the internal call Thursday that Hootsuite has a contract with ICE but also referred to recent media coverage as “fake news,” containing “factual errors” and “misinformation.” Asked by an employee to elaborate, another company official said Hootsuite’s software cannot be used to track or identify the specific location of individuals, though it can surface high-level geographic information tied to content.
The Globe did not report that ICE was using Hootsuite’s software to track individuals. Instead, The Globe reported that Hootsuite employees discussed adding geolocation data down to the “street level” during a conference call with a CBP employee in October. The Globe also reported that an employee had posted a list of questions about Hootsuite’s contract with ICE on a company Slack channel, including how the company would ensure that the agency does not violate terms of service by tracking individuals and groups.
The Globe sent a list of questions in advance of that story to Hootsuite’s media relations team and to Ms. Novoselsky, but received no response.
On the Thursday call, one employee asked about Hootsuite’s large team in Mexico, some of whom have had direct experiences with ICE, or have family members who have had encounters with the agency. The employee noted that much of the discussion on the internal call had been about responding to customer and media inquiries but did not address how some employees feel about the ICE account.
“I appreciate that, and I think it’s extremely difficult,” Ms. Novoselsky said, reiterating that Hootsuite would terminate any customer that violates its terms and saying that she wanted to have more discussions with the Mexico team. “We take this extremely seriously,” she said.
