Every American in One Database. Searchable by AI.

Tax returns. Medical records. Social Security numbers. The Trump administration wants it all in one place, and it wants machines reading through it.

Multiple security surveillance cameras mounted on a pole against a grey sky

TL;DR: The Trump administration is merging databases from the IRS, Social Security Administration, HHS, DHS, OPM, and at least six other agencies into a centralized system searchable by artificial intelligence. An executive order signed March 2025 ordered agencies to eliminate “information silos” and report which privacy regulations should be dismantled. DOGE whistleblowers say engineers carried “backpacks full of laptops” with access to different agency systems. One ex-DOGE engineer allegedly walked out with 500 million SSA records on a thumb drive. The Freedom of the Press Foundation is suing OMB for documents. At least 12 federal lawsuits allege Privacy Act violations. This is not a future scenario. It’s happening now.

What The Intercept Found

On March 17, 2026, The Intercept published what amounts to a blueprint for mass surveillance [1].

Lauren Harper (the first Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation) laid out the case that the administration is building “every authoritarian’s dream: a centralized database containing intimate details about every resident of this country, fully searchable by artificial intelligence.”

The critical word there is searchable by AI. A database that a human analyst queries one name at a time is a filing cabinet. A database that machine learning algorithms automatically scan, cross-reference, and flag anomalies across 300+ million people is something else entirely.

Harper writes that information silos between agencies “aren’t an inefficiency. They are a bulwark” against government abuse. The Trump administration calls those silos “waste” and is demolishing them.

What Goes Into the Database

Based on executive orders, whistleblower testimony, lawsuits, and investigative reporting, here’s what’s being merged [1][2][3][4]:

Agency Data
IRS Federal tax returns, income, employment, banking data
SSA Social Security numbers, birth dates, citizenship, race/ethnicity, parents’ names (500M+ records in NUMIDENT database)
HHS/CMS Medicaid records for ~80 million patients, child care/foster care/Head Start data
DHS/ICE Immigration records, biometric data, enforcement targeting files
OPM Federal employee background checks, medical records, banking data
VA Veterans’ medical files
Dept. of Education Student records
HUD Housing assistance data (now shared with DHS)
TSA Biometric passenger data (now shared with immigration enforcement)
CIA Granted increased access to domestic law enforcement databases

Add it up: your taxes, your medical history, your Social Security record, your kids’ school data, where you live, whether you get housing assistance, your biometric data, and your travel patterns. All in one place. All searchable by machines.

The Executive Order That Started It

On March 20, 2025, Trump signed an executive order titled “Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos” [5]. The stated goal was efficiency. The actual provisions:

  • Directs agency heads to grant “full and prompt access” of unclassified records to designated federal officials
  • Authorizes inter-agency sharing and consolidation of records
  • Requires agencies to report to OMB which privacy regulations should be eliminated or modified
  • Demands agencies modify or rescind internal privacy protections within 30 days
  • Requires states to provide “unfettered access” to data from federally-funded programs

Read that third point again. The executive branch ordered every agency to tell it which privacy rules are in the way so they can be removed. The Freedom of the Press Foundation filed a FOIA lawsuit to get those reports [6]. OMB hasn’t turned them over.

What the Whistleblowers Said

In April 2025, Rep. Gerald Connolly, Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee, released “multiple credible and disturbing” whistleblower reports revealing how DOGE is building the system [7]:

  • DOGE engineers created specialized computers providing “full access to networks and databases across different agencies”
  • Staff assembled “backpacks full of laptops, each with access to different agency systems”, an apparent attempt to sidestep network security controls
  • Personal information was moved across agencies without the notification required under the Privacy Act
  • The consolidation creates a “honeypot” for hackers that “dwarfs” the 2015 OPM breach, which exposed 22+ million people

Then it got worse.

On March 10, 2026, the Washington Post reported a second whistleblower alleging that a former DOGE software engineer claimed to possess two restricted SSA databases (the NUMIDENT file and the Death Master File) containing records for more than 500 million living and dead Americans [8]. The engineer allegedly had “God-level” access to SSA systems and stored at least one database on a personal thumb drive. He reportedly told colleagues at his new private-sector job that he wanted to share the data with his employer.

The SSA Inspector General confirmed an investigation is underway [9].

Why AI Changes Everything

Government databases aren’t new. What’s new is the AI layer on top.

The Intercept reports the administration is “unleashing AI across federal systems to analyze the data points they are harvesting from our private lives” [1]. That transforms the threat. A government clerk running a name search is limited by time and attention. An AI system running continuously across merged databases can:

  • Automatically flag “anomalies” in tax filings cross-referenced against Medicaid enrollment
  • Build predictive profiles based on address history, travel patterns, and financial records
  • Identify social networks by mapping who lives with whom, who files taxes together, who shares addresses
  • Target enforcement actions based on algorithmic scoring rather than human judgment

The Center for American Progress called it a “digital panopticon: a government watchtower comprised of previously unconnected data that executive agencies and officials can use to observe the lives of millions of Americans with unprecedented intimate detail” [2].

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned in March that AI plus purchased data creates “a comprehensive picture of any person’s life, automatically and at massive scale” [10]. The government doesn’t even need to buy it anymore. It already has it.

Palantir Builds the Infrastructure

If you’re wondering who builds a system like this, meet the usual contractor.

Palantir holds a $30 million contract through 2027 for ImmigrationOS, an AI platform designed to track immigrants [11]. ICE agents use Palantir’s ELITE tool (Enhanced Leads Identification and Targeting for Enforcement) which one agent described as resembling “kind of like Google Maps” for finding deportation targets [12].

ELITE assigns “confidence scores” to addresses. It receives data from HHS/Medicaid and other sources. Court testimony in Oregon revealed it populates a map with potential targets and builds dossiers on each person [12].

ICE and CMS signed a data-sharing agreement giving ICE access to personal data from nearly 80 million Medicaid patients [11]. A federal judge found that sharing IRS data on 42,695+ individuals with DHS/ICE violated tax law [3]. They did it anyway.

DHS has consolidated surveillance functions into large vendor-platforms (primarily Palantir) that integrate ID scanning, device analytics, video/audio analysis, and social media monitoring. “Inactive” surveillance programs persist within these systems, enabling what the American Immigration Council calls “continuous, real-time surveillance and automated enforcement decisions” [11].

12 Lawsuits and Counting

The legal pushback is mounting. At least 12 federal lawsuits allege Privacy Act violations across three categories [4]:

  1. “Need-to-know” violations: Did DOGE personnel genuinely require identifiable records for their duties?
  2. Routine use violations: Does the cross-agency sharing align with the original purposes for which data was collected?
  3. Inadequate safeguards: Backpacks full of laptops and thumb drives don’t meet the bar

Key cases:

  • Freedom of the Press Foundation v. OMB: Seeking agency reports on which privacy regulations to eliminate [6]
  • EPIC v. OPM: Alleging DOGE privacy violations at the Office of Personnel Management [13]
  • 19-state lawsuit: Challenging Treasury data sharing as unconstitutional
  • ACLU FOIA demand: Seeking records on DOGE’s unrestricted access to SSA data [14]

The National Consumer Law Center called the Treasury’s proposed data-sharing notice “a significant and unwarranted invasion of individual privacy by the federal government,” noting it would allow access by 21 separate categories of entities [15]. Nearly 50 legal service organizations signed on.

We’ve Seen This Before. Sort Of.

After 9/11, the Bush administration proposed the Total Information Awareness program: what the ACLU called “the closest thing to a true ‘Big Brother’ program” ever contemplated [4]. Even then, the government acknowledged it needed new legislation to build such a system.

The current administration is attempting the same consolidation without new legislation. It’s using executive orders and data-sharing agreements to do what Congress explicitly refused to authorize 23 years ago.

The Privacy Act of 1974 was passed after Watergate and the FBI’s COINTELPRO scandal specifically to prevent this kind of data aggregation. As the Center for American Progress notes, the act “has simply not kept up with the times.” It was written before the internet, mass data storage, and the ability to link massive databases [2].

A 68-page bipartisan staff report in Congress proposed Privacy Act reform [16]. It hasn’t moved.

What You Can Do

  • Support the lawsuits: The Freedom of the Press Foundation, EPIC, and ACLU are all fighting this in court. They need funding and attention
  • Contact your representatives: Ask where they stand on Privacy Act reform. A 68-page bipartisan blueprint exists. Nobody’s voted on it
  • Minimize your data exposure: The less data that exists about you, the less that ends up in a centralized system. Our privacy guides show you how to reduce your digital footprint
  • Follow the FISA 702 fight: The data broker loophole debate in Congress is directly connected. If the government can also buy data without a warrant on top of what it already collects, the database gets even bigger

References

  1. The Intercept: “Trump Wants to Put You in a Massive, Secret Government Database” (March 17, 2026)
  2. Center for American Progress: “Using Americans’ Sensitive Data To Build a Digital Watchtower”
  3. NPR: “ICE Has Spun a Massive Surveillance Web. We Talked to People Caught in It” (March 4, 2026)
  4. Brookings: “Privacy Under Siege: DOGE’s One Big Beautiful Database”
  5. White House: Executive Order Fact Sheet: Eliminating Information Silos (March 20, 2025)
  6. Freedom of the Press Foundation: “FPF Sues to See How Agencies Are Dismantling Privacy Safeguards”
  7. House Oversight Committee Democrats: Whistleblower Report on DOGE Master Database
  8. Washington Post: DOGE Engineer Alleged to Have Stolen SSA Data on Thumb Drive (March 10, 2026)
  9. NPR: SSA Inspector General Investigating DOGE Data Theft (March 11, 2026)
  10. NPR: “Your Data Is Everywhere. The Government Is Buying It Without a Warrant” (March 25, 2026)
  11. American Immigration Council: ICE ImmigrationOS and Palantir AI Surveillance
  12. Fortune: ICE Allegedly Uses Palantir ELITE Tool Tracking Medicaid Data (January 2026)
  13. EPIC: EPIC v. OPM: DOGE Privacy Violations
  14. ACLU: FOIA Demand for Records on DOGE Data Access
  15. NCLC: “Trump Administration Embarks on Unwarranted Invasion of Privacy” (March 9, 2026)
  16. Government Executive: Bipartisan Privacy Act Reform Blueprint (February 2026)

Published: April 1, 2026