More than 20,000 individuals, state and national organizations representing millions of Americans, elected officials, legal aid groups and others just told the Social Security Administration (SSA) to stop abusing their personal data. 

In late September, the League of Women Voters and Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a lawsuit challenging the administration’s unlawful expansion of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system into a new tool for conducting citizenship checks to determine eligibility to vote and and substantially changes the way benefits eligibility is assessed. Because the new system combines and repurposes millions of Americans’ data in ways that were never intended or authorized by Congress, the changes create serious privacy and data security risks and could lead to U.S. citizens being wrongfully purged from state voter rolls or wrongfully denied government benefits.

The coalition is represented by counsel from CREW, Democracy Forward and Fair Elections Center.

Under the administration’s plans, SSA would play a key role in this abuse of government data by providing DHS with sensitive immigration and citizenship information, a clear misuse of that data. In response to the lawsuit, SSA belatedly published a System of Records Notice regarding its new role in the overhauled SAVE system—which triggered a public comment period required under the Privacy Act—seeking input on these changes. 

The agency received over 21,000 comments before the December 12 deadline and nearly all of them were opposed to the government’s dramatic expansion of the SAVE system.

This overwhelming public opposition follows a similar comment period held by DHS, in which over 9,300 comments were submitted in opposition to DHS’s illegal repurposing of Americans’ personal data for use in the SAVE system.

In addition to the thousands of individual comments from people across the country, opposition to the government’s plan came from organizations including from 171 state and local League of Women Voters’ chapters, a separate comment from the national League of Women Voters, the League of Women Voters of Louisiana, the League of Women Voters of Virginia, and the League of Women Voters of Texas the four League of Women Voters’ chapters who are plaintiffs in the suit, Brennan Center for Justice, Fair Elections Center, Dēmos, All Voting Is Local, Texas Civil Rights Project, Protect Democracy Project, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, UnidosUS, Center for American Progress, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Common Cause, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Campaign Legal Center, American Civil Liberties Union, Democracy Defenders Action, Chinese Progressive Association, Service Employees International Union, National Urban League, Asian American Federation, Secure Elections Network, Justice in Aging, Legal Aid DC, Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, Maryland Legal Aid, Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands, Empire Justice Center (with Urban Justice Center and New York Legal Assistance Group), Legal Council for Health Justice and Data Foundation.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) led a comment also signed by Advocacy for Principled Action in Government, Arab American Institute Foundation (AAI), Association of Public Data Users, Center for Democracy & Technology, CTData Collaborative, Demand Progress Education Fund, League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), National Women’s Law Center, New America’s Open Technology Institute, Secure Elections Network, Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, Temple University Institute for Law, Innovation & Technology (iLIT) and The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Sen. Alex Padilla, Ranking Member on the Senate Committee that oversees elections, submitted a comment, as did Reps. Nikema Williams and Eleanor Holmes Norton.

The thousands of comments rightfully point out that the changes not only violate the law, but place Americans’ privacy, security and voting rights in peril. Below are some highlights.

Civil Rights Groups

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

“This is the future that SSA and USCIS envision: information across SSA, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the State Department, state motor vehicles departments, and state voter files would be consolidated in a single database. Combining these key identifiers would make further linkages with tax records, Medicaid files, and more rather easy for the government to achieve — and DHS is actively building the infrastructure to access that very data. SAVE would permit a future president — of either party — to identify registered Democrats or Republicans (from voter files), who have given to particular advocacy organizations (from tax records), and who receive particular benefits (from state queries to SAVE). Combining that information with biometric information and commercially available location data that DHS components already collect would, again, be simple to effectuate. USCIS’s vision for SAVE, facilitated by SSA, is a platform for surveillance, ripe for political abuse.”

Texas Civil Rights Project

“A September 2024 survey commissioned by the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement and the non-partisan voting rights organization VoteRiders found that approximately 1% of Texans who are U.S. citizens of voting age do not have documents that would prove their citizenship, while another 6% do not have easy access to those documents. That amounts to approximately 1.3 million Texans who are US citizens of voting age that either would not be able to prove their citizenship, or would have great difficulty in doing so. To put this into perspective, that is 472 times the number of potential noncitizens the Texas SOS’s use of the SAVE database flagged.

“While Texas voters are already feeling these effects, under the policies outlined in this SORN, the same harms are likely to occur across the nation. Even in places with more accessible voter registration processes, these kinds of errors undermine the democratic process. As well as wasting county election officials’ time and resources, sending cancellation notices to voters often results in voter intimidation that dampens democratic participation. This risk is especially salient when states pursue criminal penalties based on SAVE’s potentially inaccurate information. Finally, states erroneously claiming that large numbers of noncitizens have registered to vote or have voted fuels misinformation and diminishes trust in elections.”

Legal Aid Groups

Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands

“Our team includes attorneys and advocates specialized in benefits for Tennesseans who are disabled, elderly, or living in poverty, and we have represented thousands of low-income people in Social Security-related legal matters. … In our experience, Social Security’s records with respect to ‘citizenship and immigration status’ are often inaccurate and incomplete. …  

“Legal Aid Society has seen firsthand evidence of this incomplete data in our Social Security practice:

“Mr. S. was born in Kurdistan in Iraq and came to the United States, legally, in the early 2000s. He became a naturalized citizen approximately 15 years later. He has worked since his arrival in the U.S., but was unable to sustain full-time employment after he developed a severe, chronic gastrointestinal condition that has required multiple surgeries. Legal Aid Society represented him in a disability claim, for which he was approved.

“Following the approval, Mr. S. had an in-person appointment at his Social Security field office where he provided his original naturalization certificate, and the worker retained a copy. Nevertheless, he was denied benefits because Social Security’s records indicated he was not a citizen. It required several months of advocacy with both the field office and Social Security central operations in Baltimore to resolve the issue and start his payments.

“In this case, Mr. S. had actually provided proof of citizenship, in person, which was copied and scanned into his record, and Social Security’s system still denied him for being an ineligible alien. … 

“Our clients’ experiences and Social Security’s own statements make clear that information sharing with DHS for the purpose of voter registration screening has real potential to disenfranchise eligible U.S. Citizen voters.”

Community Legal Services of Philadelphia

“Non-citizens who are eligible for benefits must be able to trust that they can access those benefits without fear that their information will be misused. Ongoing litigation and public rhetoric have fueled persistent misinformation and confusion within immigrant communities. Research consistently shows that immigrant families often forgo critical public benefits because of concerns about potential immigration-related consequences. These fears have intensified in response to recent federal immigration policy changes, leading families to limit their daily activities and their participation in essential assistance programs. Three in ten immigrants, including approximately three-quarters of likely undocumented immigrants and about one-third of lawfully present immigrants, report avoiding travel, medical care, work, and other public spaces due to these concerns. Recent legislation has also reduced eligibility for federally funded health coverage programs among lawfully present immigrants, further compounding barriers to care and support. Misperceptions about the accuracy and confidentiality of information sharing undermine SSA’s mission to ensure that all eligible individuals can access the benefits to which they are entitled.

“Moreover, cuts in federal benefits do not produce long-term savings; they simply shift the costs rather than eliminate them. When individuals are denied access to essential programs, their needs do not disappear; instead, other entities such as states and local governments, nonprofit organizations, hospitals, and families are forced to absorb that financial burden. This often results in higher costs downstream, such as increased emergency room usage, greater reliance on crisis services, and reduced economic stability for affected households. In many circumstances, the federal disinvestment ultimately leads to higher public expenditures overall, as problems that could have been addressed early and efficiently become more complicated and costly over time.”

Members of Congress

Senator Alex Padilla: “In sum, these changes are not likely to make voter rolls more accurate. To the contrary, SSA’s decision to partner with DHS and allow it to process sensitive data through the SAVE program to verify voter citizenship statuses could well result in many Americans being erroneously purged from voter rolls. It also could result in the loss or theft of their sensitive information which could then be misused by bad actors.

Reps. Nikema Williams and Eleanor Holmes Norton: “By sharing millions of Americans’ Social Security information with DHS, [SSA] has allowed the incorporation of unreliable data into the SAVE system without legal authority, without considering the significant risks to the privacy and voting rights of Americans, and has recklessly authorized the use of this database to determine voter eligibility.”

Individual Comments

“We give the Social Security Administration our personal information to access the benefits we’ve earned. Nobody consented to have our information secretly plugged into a system used to purge voters and invade our privacy.The Privacy Act was created to stop exactly this kind of mass surveillance. It was written to ensure that when the government collects our data for one purpose, it can’t be used for another. Dumping all our sensitive, personal information into a single system makes us all more vulnerable to hacks, breaches, and abuse. This data is notoriously inaccurate – especially for naturalized citizens. Yet already, some states are using this flawed system to purge eligible voters from the rolls. We demand an end to this scheme now before even more damage is done.” (Link)

“As a former employee of the Social Security Administration, I strongly urge SSA to immediately halt any expansion of data sharing with the SAVE system. First and foremost, the Federal Government and its employees are charged with protecting and defending the Constitution of the US. This includes the right to privacy! Why would any government employee, particularly the SSA Administrator in charge of oversight, think or do otherwise? Expanding the flow of Social Security data into SAVE will: 1. Expose millions of people to greater risk of data breaches and misuse of their personal information; and 2. Enable the targeting of immigrants and wrongful voter purges, especially in states that have already used SAVE to question the citizenship of eligible voters. SSA’s core mission is to administer Social Security and support workers, retirees, disabled people, and their families – not to help build a larger surveillance and deportation infrastructure. Linking more SSA records to SAVE blurs that line and undermines public trust in the agency. I am particularly concerned about the impact on immigrant communities and mixed-status families. Many people pay into Social Security and interact with SSA in good faith, expecting their information to be used to administer benefits, not to fuel enforcement actions or voter suppression efforts. For these reasons, I respectfully request that SSA:1. Reject any expansion of data sharing with DHS and the SAVE system; 2. Conduct and publicly release a thorough analysis of the civil rights, privacy, and due process impacts of any existing data-sharing arrangements; and 3. Reaffirm that SSA data will not be used to facilitate immigration enforcement or voter roll purges. Thank you for considering my comment and for protecting the privacy, rights, and dignity of all people whose data SSA holds.” (Link)

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