EPIC, More State AGs Celebrate Win Over USDA's Data Demand
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) cheered a federal court decision Wednesday that halts the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) demand for state data about Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients. However, it warned the personal information of millions of Americans remains at risk.
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"Judge Chesney's ruling confirms what was already clear: the USDA's indiscriminate demand for SNAP recipient data is illegal," said John Davisson, director of litigation at EPIC, in an email to Privacy Daily. "The administration has no authority to turn a food assistance program into a piggybank of personal information to carry out attacks on immigrants and the social safety net."
"The states that brought this case were absolutely right to fight back," he added, while noting "millions of Americans in other states are still at risk." Davisson said EPIC intends "to put a permanent stop to the USDA's unlawful demand and help ensure protection for millions more SNAP recipients."
EPIC is part of a coalition of stakeholders -- which also includes students from the National Student Legal Defense Network and SNAP recipients -- engaged in its own litigation against the USDA. The group's case, 1:25-cv-0165, was filed before the states' lawsuit, and contains similar allegations: the federal government disregarded legal procedures when it established the data demand (see 2509020057).
EPIC and the other stakeholders filed a notice of supplemental authority Thursday, noting that in the states' case, "the court found that no statute likely empowers USDA to demand that states turn over individual SNAP data in the present circumstances."
They additionally argued that final relief remains urgent, as the district court's decision only pertained to the 22 states involved in the lawsuit, and "many of the other 31 SNAP jurisdictions ... are already sharing data pursuant to USDA’s demands."
"Nor does the injunction do anything to redress the injuries ... that all plaintiffs have suffered from USDA’s failure to abide by the Privacy Act, the Paperwork Reduction Act, or the APA’s bar on arbitrary and capricious decision-making," the document added.
Also in the states' case, the U.S. District Court for Northern California also ordered the federal agency not to withhold funding from benefits agencies in more than 20 states (see 2510160015).
The states brought the suit in case 3:25-cv-06310 in July, and the district court has already granted them a temporary restraining order to block the data collection (see 2509190015), despite the federal agency’s continued arguments that its actions are lawful (see 2509030046).
Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown (D) said he was "grateful" that the coalition of states "secured this court order protecting Washingtonians’ privacy,” in a release Thursday. “The last thing people struggling to put food on the table need to worry about is the federal government demanding access to their private information,” he added.