“DHS has been sharing data very carefully for good reasons, for a long time,” said a former DHS staffer, who spoke with the links anonymously because they did not have the right to speak to the media. “It’s very shocking to see this change. I think the systemization of this is all scary because it can enable the government to follow real or perceived enemies or ‘alien;’ enemy aliens.'”
Experts say that although government agencies often share data, the process is recorded for specific purposes. Nevertheless, the merger appears to have administration support: On March 20, President Trump signed an executive order requiring all federal agencies to promote “in- and inter-agency sharing and merger of unclassified institutional records.” Doge officials and Trump’s executive leadership also recommended that all government data be centralized into a single repository. “Just as you think about the future of AI, in order to consider using any of these tools, we have to get the data,” General Services Administration Act Administrator Stephen Ehikian said at a town hall meeting on March 20. On March 20, Airbnb Cofounder and Doge Gebbia Supert supers serne nothing servers servers sere conders of apple share consect”airbnb cofounder and doge gebbia surd”airbnb cofounder and do news”’
According to the former staffer, historically it has been difficult to obtain data that DHS has in its different departments. The combined data lake will “represent a significant departure from data norms and policies.” However, they said, “It is easier to do this with DHS-controlled data than trying to combine it with sensitive data from other agencies, because access to data from other agencies may have more obstacles.
This has not stopped multiple agents from requesting access to immigration information in the past few months, until recently, isolated in different government agencies. According to United States National, County and Municipal Employees Federation, AFL-CIO v. Social Security Bureau On March 15, Doge members stationed in SSA requested access to the USCIS database, Save, local and state governments of the system, and federal governments to verify a person’s immigration status.
According to two DHS sources with direct knowledge, SSA data was uploaded to the USCIS system on March 24, only 9 days after Doge received the SSA-sensitive government data system. SSA sources familiar with telling WIERD that the information type is consistent with the agency’s Numindent database, which is an information file contained in the Social Security Numbers application. The Numident record will include a person’s social security number, full name, date of birth, citizenship, race, race, gender, mother’s maiden name, alien number, and more.
Supervision to protect this data also seems to be more limited now. In March, the Department of Homeland Security announced the reduction of the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL), the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman and the Office of the Citizen and Immigration Services Ombudsman, all critical offices are important guards against data abuse. “We have not taken action in the data community without talking to CRCL,” the former DHS employee said.
