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The Trump administration has been heavily invested in consolidating all of the government’s information into a single searchable, or perhaps AI-queryable, super database. The compiling of all of this information is being done with the dubious justification of efficiency and modernization–however, in many cases, this information was originally siloed for important reasons: to protect your privacy, to prevent different branches of government from using sensitive data to punish or harass you, and to perserve the trust in and legitimacy of important civic institutions.
Attempts to Centralize All the Government’s Information About You
This process of consolidation has taken several forms. The purported Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been seeking access to the data and computer systems of dozens of government agencies. According to one report, access to the data of these agencies has given DOGE, as of April 2025, hundreds of pieces of personal information about people living in the United States–everything ranging from financial and tax information, health and healthcare information, and even computer I.P. addresses. EFF is currently engaged in a lawsuit against the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and DOGE for disclosing personal information about government employees to people who don’t need it in violation of the Privacy Act of 1974.
Another key maneuver in centralizing government information has been to steamroll the protections that were in place that keep this information away from agencies that don’t need, or could abuse, this information. This has been done by ignoring the law, like the Trump administration did when it ordered the IRS make tax information available for the purposes of immigration enforcement. It ha
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