# EFF reports unlawful federal data consolidation and privacy violations

> **Key takeaway:** The EFF is fighting a multi-wave effort by the US federal government to unlawfully consolidate sensitive databases for immigration enforcement and voter purges.

**Published:** 2026-10-09T21:46:34+00:00 
**Source:** Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) 
**Category:** policy-community 
**Canonical URL:** https://fosswire.org/news/eff-reports-unlawful-federal-data-consolidation-and-privacy-.html 

## Summary
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has detailed a series of unlawful data consolidation efforts by the US federal government. These efforts include the DOGE agency accessing sensitive records from the OPM and Social Security Administration, DHS seizing tax and Medicaid data to target immigrants, and the expansion of the SAVE system to purge voter rolls. The EFF and other organizations are using lawsuits to challenge these practices and protect data privacy laws.

## Three waves of data consolidation
- **DOGE Access**: Obtained high-level access to unclassified agency records from the OPM, Social Security Administration, and Treasury Department.
- **DHS Expansion**: Attempted to seize and compare IRS tax records, HHS Medicaid data, and HUD public housing data for immigration enforcement.
- **SAVE System**: Re-purposed the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system to perform bulk searches for voter eligibility, flagging over 21,000 individuals.
- **Commercial Data**: ICE has utilized commercial location data and contracts with providers like Palantir to organize collected datasets.

## Why it matters
These actions represent a significant challenge to the federal Privacy Act of 1974 and existing data protection frameworks, prompting widespread legal resistance from civil liberties groups.