An Icelandic hosting provider has refused a federal demand to delete a website exposing details of more than 40,000 Homeland Security workers. The ICE data leak has pulled Donald Trump’s administration into a new dispute over government transparency and staff safety. It also raised questions about control of information online.
FlokiNET’s response to the DHS takedown request revealed
The cybersecurity firm ZeroFox wrote to the host, FlokiNET, on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). FlokiNET made the letter public on Thursday. It called the employee dataset “stolen” and told the company to “remove or disable” it. “The content is live and places more than 40,000 identifiable individuals at risk of harassment, stalking, and physical harm,” the letter said.
The demand covered a single website. FlokiNET said the site gathers information on staff from several DHS agencies, among them Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Additionally, FlokiNET told DHS no.
In a public statement, it argued that officers running an enforcement programme cannot claim the same privacy as ordinary citizens while on the job. “Federal officers carrying out an enforcement programme are not private individuals while they are carrying it out,” the company said in a public statement. “The public has a legitimate interest in knowing who is doing that work, under whose authority, and in which office.”
The website’s domain registrar later suspended the domain, FlokiNET said. The employee records have since turned up on another domain. Moreover, Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), which has leaked government material, first posted the database on Wednesday. A hacker group calling itself the “Department of Peace” says it obtained and shared the DHS data. Other groups have since copied the files to additional sites, so getting them entirely removed looks unlikely.
Scrutiny of ICE and CBP has grown since Donald Trump launched his mass deportation campaign in 2025. According to The Trace, immigration agents have fired at people in at least 32 incidents since June 2025, resulting in nine deaths.
