A banner showing the image of US President Donald Trump hangs on the side of the US Department of Agriculture Building in Washington, DC on May 16, 2025. The USDA holds a request for the state to take over sensitive data about food aid recipients.
Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
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Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
The Department of Agriculture’s unprecedented request is to take over sensitive data that states and payment processors hold sensitive data on people receiving federal food aid.
USDA officials said in a court application late Friday that the agency has yet to begin collecting personal data for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients after filing a lawsuit alleging that the directive violates federal privacy laws.
in letter Last month, the department said it would need to carry over data from people who applied or assisted with SNAP over the past five years, including names, date of birth, Social Security numbers and addresses. The letter said the state should submit data through a third-party contractor, tasked with processing electronic bank transfers.
The letter cited President Donald Trump’s March 20th executive order. “By eliminating information silos, we will stop waste, fraud and abuse.” This requires federal agencies to seek “free access” to data from state programs that receive federal funds, including “third-party databases.”
In recent months, the government’s Department of Efficiency efforts have accumulated and consolidated data across federal agencies to further Trump’s administration’s goals, including immigration enforcement.
An NPR report revealed that before the letter in May, the USDA inspector’s office had requested SNAP data from four states, and according to an email reviewed by the NPR, they asked at least one state for detailed personal information about everyone who received SNAP, including their citizenship status. However, no other data was typically used to verify the financial eligibility of the program, however.
Some states, including Iowa and Ohio, have recently said they are preparing to comply with USDA requests for SNAP data.
Snap recipients and hunger, privacy and student groups alliance I sued USDA In a federal court on May 22, the request was illegal and the agency argued that it failed to follow proper procedures for data collection.
However, in a court application Friday, USDA’s official Sheila Corey indicated that the agency’s data request was temporarily suspended.
Corey, the USDA’s deputy director of food, nutrition and consumer services, said “We have instructed the EBT processor to send the data until the data received is properly protected and completed a procedural procedure to meet all necessary legal requirements.”
It is unknown when USDA communicated with the payment processor. The department declined to comment on the lawsuit.
An email sent last month from a payment processor company to partner states suggested that USDA data collection could be imminent.
On May 9, Fidelity Information Services (FIS) told state partners, “USDA has officially requested records regarding transaction data with SNAP cardholders,” according to an NPR reviewed email. The email directed the state to “confirm your written consent” by responding by May 14th.
FI, along with other payment processors, Conduent and Solutran, declined to comment on this story.
“Our contractors continue to work on this request and have not submitted anything,” wrote Alex Murphy, a spokesman for the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, in an email to NPR. “We are not aware of any further instructions or requests to suspend data transmission.”
Changes to data collection must follow the rules
Corley’s declaration provided new insight into the USDA’s intention to submit a notification regarding SNAP data collection and to comply with the requirements of the Privacy Act to seek public comment.
When federal agencies collect or edit new datasets containing personally identifiable information, they must justify their purpose and provide opportunities to weigh them by publishing a system of public notices and a record notification known as Sorn. A USDA spokesman previously told NPR that the agency’s lawyers were considering whether new notifications would be required for the new SNAP data sharing guidance.
Corey’s declaration The USDA says it has begun developing a new grief “before filing this case, it is now in the final stages of the review.”
The lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the suit have been called a “temporary victory,” known as the USDA response, as the USDA responded, as the USDA confirmed in court that the USDA was applied to the data collection process and that data remains with the state and its contractors for now.
“The Trump administration prefers to play fast and loose, including people’s data,” said Madeline Wiseman, a lawyer with the National Student Law Defense Network, representing some plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Wiseman said the USDA letter threatened the state with the possibility of loss of funds if they couldn’t agree to sales of this data, but said, “When they were taken to court, that’s another story, things are suspended and things are slowing down.”
She added that the USDA “had to see this through the lens of federal privacy laws that looked like this.
The lawsuit continues. One of the plaintiffs’ claims is that USDA’s data requests are “arbitrarily and whimsical” and must be stopped completely.
Over 40 million people receive SNAP benefits each month, but last month House Republicans passed a settlement bill. An unprecedented cut To the program.
Stephen Fowler of NPR contributed to this report.
Do you have any information you would like to share about snaps, access to government databases, and immigration? Reach out to these authors through encrypted communication over signals. Jude Joff Brock Judejb.10 and Stephen Fowler It is located at Stphnfwlr.25. Use unprocessed devices.
