AI Policy & Governance, Equity in Civic Technology, Privacy & Data
CDT and the Leadership Conference Release New Analysis of Immigration, DOGE, and Data Privacy
In March, CDT and the Leadership Conference’s Center for Civil Rights and Technology released a fact sheet examining some of the core issues related to the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) access to and use of sensitive information held by federal agencies. Since we released this analysis, not only has DOGE increased its efforts to access sensitive information across the federal government, but DOGE and federal law enforcement authorities have specifically sought to repurpose administrative data for immigration-related uses.
As the federal government seeks to rapidly expand the use of sensitive data to target immigrants, CDT and the Leadership Conference developed a follow-up explainer that analyzes the issues surrounding federal immigration authorities and DOGE’s access and use of administrative data for immigration-related activities. This new explainer details:
- The types of administrative data held by federal agencies,
- Examples of how federal administrative data is being repurposed for immigration-related efforts,
- The legal protections of federal administrative data and law enforcement exceptions,
- The impacts of government data access and use on immigrants and society, and
- The unanswered questions about and potential future changes to the federal government’s access, use, and sharing of administrative data for immigration-related purposes.
Repurposing federal administrative data for immigration-related activities may have widespread and significant impacts on the lives of U.S. citizens and non-citizen immigrants alike. Ensuring transparency into the actions of DOGE and federal immigration authorities is a critical step towards protecting and safeguarding data privacy for everyone.
