Pallek v. Rollins

Challenging the USDA’s unlawful demand to states for the personal data of millions of SNAP recipients

Summary

In May 2025, a coalition of plaintiffs including students, SNAP recipients, MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, and EPIC filed suit in federal court challenging a demand from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for states and third-party vendors to turn over the personal data of tens of millions of Americans who receive help buying food through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The plaintiffs are represented by counsel from the National Student Legal Defense Network, Protect Democracy, and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice.

Background

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is the nation’s largest nutrition assistance program available to low-income households. In February 2025, SNAP served over 42 million people in over 22 million households nationwide. SNAP operates as a federal-state partnership, where the federal government pays 100% of food benefits and shares administrative costs with the states. At the federal level, SNAP is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, though its sub-agency, the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). States, meanwhile, are responsible for program administration, including certifying applicant households and issuing benefits. As a result, states—and their vendors—maintain substantial amounts of highly personal financial, medical, housing, tax, and other information regarding SNAP applicants and recipients, and their dependents.

On May 6, 2025, the USDA sent a letter to state administrators demanding the social security numbers, addresses, and other sensitive personal information of all SNAP recipients on record since January 1, 2020. The USDA requested “unfettered access to comprehensive data,” including records stored by private companies that process SNAP payments, with no clear explanation for how this data will be used. The letter threatened that any failure to comply with the order could result in the withholding of funds to state agencies.

In an attempt to circumvent states, the USDA pressured companies that process SNAP payments on behalf of states to turn over the personal data of SNAP beneficiaries in their system. These companies include Conduent State & Local Solutions, Inc., Solutran LLC, and Fidelity Information Services (FIS).

In a May 12 letter to three SNAP payment processors (Conduent, Fidelity, and Solutran), Protect Democracy, EPIC, and the Center for Democracy and Technology wrote: “USDA’s requests disregard the basic protections enacted by Congress to protect Americans’ sensitive data, and do not comply with the many legal requirements Congress placed on agencies before they are permitted to collect and store sensitive information about individual Americans.”

Plaintiffs’ Lawsuit

On May 22, 2025, students, SNAP recipients, MAZON, and EPIC—represented by the National Student Legal Defense Network, Protect Democracy, and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice—filed suit against the USDA.

The complaint details how the USDA has failed to comply with key federal laws regulating collection, use, retention, and disclosure of personal information with respect to the SNAP data demand. In particular, the USDA has failed to publish any applicable Systems of Records Notices (SORNs) mandated by the Privacy Act of 1974, Information Collection Review (ICR) documentation mandated by the Paperwork Reduction Act, and Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) mandated by section 208 of the E-Government Act. These failures have unlawfully prevented SNAP recipients and organizations like EPIC from learning what data is being collected, how it will be used, who will have access, how it will be stored and secured, and how individuals can exercise their rights of data access and correction. Individuals and organizations have also been denied their statutory right to comment on the relevant collection(s) and system(s) of personal information.

“No one should have to surrender their privacy to put food on the table,” John Davisson, EPIC Director of Litigation, said at the time of the filing. “And for half a century, federal laws like the Privacy Act have struck a critical balance between protecting our personal information and administering public benefits like SNAP. Now it seems the USDA wants to destroy that balance and funnel sensitive beneficiary data into its own federal piggybank of personal information. But the law is clear: agencies can’t just hotwire the privacy safeguards that Congress has established. USDA has a legal obligation to protect the personal data of SNAP beneficiaries, and we intend to enforce it.”

On May 27, 2025, the plaintiffs moved for a temporary restraining order to immediately block the USDA from collecting state-level SNAP recipient data. The court (Judge Jia M. Cobb) set a hearing on the motion for June 3.

EPIC’s Interest

EPIC routinely monitors, analyzes, and educates the public about the collection, use, retention, and transfer of personal information by federal agencies, including large-scale databases and mass surveillance programs. EPIC has also undertaken significant research, advocacy, and public education concerning the systems and databases used in the provision of public benefits, including SNAP.

For decades, EPIC has made extensive use of public notices and records concerning the collection, use, retention, and transfer of personal information by federal agencies. These include Systems of Records Notices mandated by the Privacy Act, Information Collection Review documentation mandated by the Paperwork Reduction Act, and Privacy Impact Assessments mandated by section 208 of the E-Government Act. In May 2025, EPIC filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the USDA for all SORNs, ICR documentation, and PIAs applicable to the agency’s announced collection of SNAP recipient and applicant data—if any such records even exist.

In 2018, EPIC provided testimony to the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform warning lawmakers about the acute privacy and security consequences of establishing even a limited-purpose federal database of SNAP recipients. These include the dramatically enhanced risk of data breach resulting from the centralization of information; the heightened risk of identity theft and fraud, which can interfere with an individual’s access to credit, housing, public benefits, and other essentials; the intrusion inherent in the wrongful disclosure of sensitive personal information to people and agencies that are not lawfully entitled to access it; and the increased risk of having one’s benefits terminated on the basis of defective matching and consolidation of previously disaggregated datasets.

Since January 2025, EPIC has closely tracked the Administration’s efforts to consolidate and increase its access to personal information maintained by federal and state governments. This includes Executive Order 14243, Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos (March 20, 2025), the order cited as the basis for USDA’s recent demand for state-level SNAP beneficiary data. Over that time, EPIC has published analysis, developed public resources, provided expertise to lawmakers and members of the press, undertaken litigation, and engaged in extensive advocacy concerning the privacy, security, and legal risks of the Administration’s data consolidation activities.

Case Documents