The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) recent requirement for states and payment processors to provide sensitive personal information about recipients of the federal food aid has been temporarily suspended. A USDA representative disclosed in legal documents that the agency had yet to launch the data gathering process for beneficiaries of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). This comes on the heels of a lawsuit that claims the initiative contravenes federal privacy regulations.
Previously, the USDA had instructed states to furnish data pertaining to those who either applied for or availed assistance from SNAP within the prior five-year period. The information sought included a comprehensive set from names to Social Security numbers and home addresses of recipients. The state agencies were expected to channel this data through their third-party associates responsible for executing electronic bank transfers.
The need to access this data was fueled by a March 20 executive order. The directive advocated that all federal departments should have unrestricted entry to information from state programs which were beneficiaries of federal money. It added that this access extended to data managed by third-party databases.
The government’s initiative to promote efficiency has led to their compilation and centralization of data collected from a myriad of federal agencies. These efforts serve different purposes, one of which includes the enforcement of immigration laws.
Certain states such as Iowa and Ohio expressed their readiness to adhere to the USDA’s data request. However, a litigative body of SNAP beneficiaries and groups focused on privacy, hunger, and student-rights issues took a stand against USDA’s directive. They filed a lawsuit against the USDA with a federal court, asserting that the demand for data was not just illegal but also contradicted standard procedures for gathering data.
In a counteraction, the USDA official illustrated that the data request had been provisionally stopped. It was indicated that the agency would adhere to all incumbent legal norms regarding data preservation and management prior to reinitiating the data collection. However, the exact date when USDA conveyed this message to its payment processors remains a mystery.
Scrutiny of the situation revealed the existence of an email propagated by a payment processing company linked with several state agencies. This correspondence drew attention to the USDA’s efforts to compile data and requested written approval. The overarching fact remains that there has been no submission of data as of yet.
Insights also demonstrated that the USDA is establishing measures to meet the Privacy Act’s requirements. An obligation of the Act involves filing a notice and soliciting public opinion on the new data capture initiatives. This filing, termed as a Systems of Record Notice (SORN), would elucidate the reasons for data collection and afford the public an opportunity to respond.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit view this development as a short-term win. This is primarily due to the USDA’s acceptance that federal privacy laws pertain to the process of gathering data. It provides some relief as the data has not yet been handed over and remains with the respective states and their contractors.
SNAP is a program of significant impact – it aids over 40 million citizens on a monthly basis. The intersection of data privacy and the efficient operation of such a critical public assistance program will continue to be a challenging balance for the USDA and other similar agencies as they navigate the complexities of modern governance.