The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) believes that the U.S. federal government has spent the past two years illegally aggregating personal data in three successive waves involving the DOGE initiative, interagency data sharing for immigration law enforcement purposes, and the use of extensive databases to screen voter eligibility. The organization says that collecting tax, government benefits, and voter registration data in interconnected systems increases the likelihood of errors and misuse and undermines individuals’ trust in institutions.
The EFF presents an analytical, privacy-advocacy position, not a neutral account of all sides of the dispute. Its argument is based on lawsuits, government actions, and figures cited by the organization, while some facts and ultimate effects remain subject to judicial review.
Three Paths to Data Aggregation
The first path began on January 20, 2025, when President Donald Trump created DOGE by renaming an agency originally established to modernize government technology, according to the EFF’s description. The organization says that DOGE quickly gained broad access to sensitive databases held by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the Social Security Administration, and the Treasury Department, including personal records for millions of people.
The EFF accuses the initiative of departing from the goal of technological modernization and granting authority to people whose government or cybersecurity experience, it said, was limited, with some facing conflicts of interest. It also points to an incident involving the Social Security Administration, where an external agreement was signed to use the agency’s data to search for alleged evidence of election fraud and “overturn the election results in certain states.” The organization says that the data-sharing and integration operations violated the restrictions of the federal Privacy Act of 1974.
The second path consisted, according to the EFF, of attempts by the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies to share or take possession of tax data held by the Internal Revenue Service, Medicaid data held by the Department of Health and Human Services, and public housing data, in addition to SNAP program databases. The organization also mentions ICE’s purchase of commercial geolocation data without a warrant and its interest in big-data providers and advertising technologies, along with the use of companies such as Palantir to organize the datasets collected by the agency.
From Immigration Databases to Voter Rolls
The third path focuses on elections. The government expanded its use of the SAVE system, meaning Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, from verifying the eligibility of immigrants and naturalized citizens for certain benefits to screening voter eligibility. The EFF says that more than 60 million voters passed through the system and that 21,000 were flagged as potentially ineligible noncitizens, with erroneous data resulting in the targeting of lawful voters such as Anthony Nell.
The organization says that since 2025 the federal government has requested voter data from at least 48 states, with at least 16 states complying, while the government filed lawsuits against 30 states that refused to hand over the data; 25 of those lawsuits had been dismissed by the time the article was written. The administration also issued an executive order in March 2026 requiring the Department of Homeland Security to create a federal list of the names of U.S. citizens who are 18 or older and reside in the state.
The Legal Battle and What Is Changing in Practice?
The EFF points to lawsuits such as League of Women Voters v. DHS, Common Cause v. DOJ, California v. Trump, and EPIC v. USCIS, as well as cases involving Internal Revenue Service and Medicaid data. A federal court found the expansion of SAVE unlawful, and an appeals court declined to halt the decision, but the U.S. Supreme Court granted a temporary stay by a vote of six to three. In another case, a stay issued by the Supreme Court allowed the voter-eligibility-list program to proceed, while a stay of a ruling concerning another part of the executive order on voting by mail was denied by a vote of seven to two.
The direct technical significance is that reusing data outside the purpose for which it was collected can turn verification systems into tools for large-scale classification and exclusion. The risks increase when automated matching is combined with incomplete or inaccurate data, because the outcome may affect access to a government service or the exercise of the right to vote before the affected person can correct the record.
EFF Proposals and Open Questions
The EFF calls for narrowing loopholes in the federal Privacy Act and expanding its enforceability, preventing law enforcement agencies from bypassing warrant requirements by purchasing data from brokers, and enacting a comprehensive consumer privacy law. It also refers to the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act and to a “privacy first” framework.
However, the article does not resolve the ultimate harms of every program or the outcome of all lawsuits, and some of its claims come from the EFF or parties to the cases. The scope of federal authority, the accuracy of matching between databases, and mechanisms for notifying individuals and correcting their errors therefore remain open practical and legal questions.