Coalition Asks Court to Block USDA’s Collection of Personal SNAP Data

A coalition of students, SNAP recipients, MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, and EPIC sought a temporary restraining order Tuesday to block the U.S. Department of Agriculture from unlawfully acquiring the personal data of millions of SNAP recipients. EPIC and its co-plaintiffs are represented in the case (Pallek v. Rollins) by counsel from the National Student Legal Defense Network, Protect Democracy, and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice.

“This case concerns the executive branch’s attempt to round up the sensitive personal data of tens of millions of economically vulnerable Americans with callous indifference for the mandatory privacy protections enshrined in federal law,” the filing explains.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is the nation’s largest nutrition assistance program available to low-income households and serves tens of millions of people. SNAP operates as a federal-state partnership. As a result, states and their vendors maintain substantial amounts of SNAP recipients’ highly sensitive personal information—data that (by design) is not generally held by the federal government.

Earlier this month, 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 2020. The USDA also pressured companies that process SNAP payments on behalf of states to turn over the personal data of SNAP beneficiaries in their system.

Protect Democracy, EPIC, and the Center for Democracy and Technology responded with a letter warning that “USDA’s requests . . . 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.”

Last week, students, SNAP recipients, MAZON, and EPIC filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to challenge the USDA’s numerous violations of federal privacy and disclosure laws through its SNAP data demand. The complaint details how the USDA has failed to publish any applicable Systems of Records Notices mandated by the Privacy Act of 1974, Information Collection Review documentation mandated by the Paperwork Reduction Act, and Privacy Impact Assessments mandated by section 208 of the E-Government Act.

A temporary restraining order, if granted, would block the USDA’s data demand while the case moves forward. A hearing on the motion has been scheduled for June 3 at 10:30 a.m. ET before U.S. District Judge Jia M. Cobb.