Preserving federal data has long been essential to transparency, accountability, and evidence-based policymaking in the United States. While every administration faces its share of data management challenges, the sheer volume of lost or altered information under the Trump administration suggests these challenges have now reached an unprecedented level.
In the months since the presidential transition, more than 8,000 webpages and thousands of datasets have been removed or altered across agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Census Bureau, and Food and Drug Administration. Removal of this data from government agency websites jeopardizes access to vital public information on health, safety, environmental, and demographic issues. At the same time, sweeping executive orders on interagency data-sharing and the consolidation of sensitive information under the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have drawn criticism from privacy advocates, transparency experts, and civil society groups. These concerns are magnified by weakened oversight mechanisms following the dismissal of key members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.
In response to these developments, Just Security is launching a new series, “Data Preservation Under the Trump Administration,” to explore the legal, ethical, and policy implications of current federal data practices. As political pressures intensify and the risk of data loss grows, this series aims to provide comprehensive analysis of how federal data is stored, shared, and accessed.
The series contains the following articles and will be updated regularly:
- Deborah Brown, “DOGE’s Growing Reach Into Personal Data: What it Means for Human Rights” (Apr. 16, 2025)
- Amy Edwards Homes, “Vanishing Accountability: The U.S. Retreat from Open Data”
- Corinna Turbes, “Beyond Data Rescue: Building Structural Safeguards for Federal Data Preservation”
- Richard Painter, “Federal Records Belong to the Government”