Missouri will hand over personal data of food aid recipients to feds
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Missouri has agreed to abide by a request from the federal government to turn over personal data about anyone receiving food assistance, the state social services agency confirmed to The Independent Tuesday.
This story was originally published by the Missouri Independent.
Missouri has agreed to abide by a request from the federal government to turn over personal data about anyone receiving food assistance, the state social services agency confirmed to The Independent Tuesday.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture earlier this month requested sensitive data from states about participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, including their Social Security numbers and addresses, in what it says is an effort to ensure program integrity.
That request has prompted concerns among privacy and hunger groups, who have argued it violates federal privacy law and data protections.
Currently, information about the names of people receiving SNAP and their personal information is held only by states, not the federal government. Some states with Democratic governors, including Kansas and New Mexico, have refused to comply with the request, citing concerns surrounding its legality.
Alaska has said it will comply, as have Ohio and Iowa.
“It is normal course of business for Missouri to securely share information regarding federal programs with federal partner agencies,” said Baylee Watts, spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Social Services.
The social services department, Watts added, “does not anticipate any concerns and will coordinate with the USDA to ensure appropriate follow up is taken from the state level.”
SNAP is a joint state-federal program: The federal government pays for benefits that states administer.
There were 652,427 people receiving SNAP benefits in Missouri as of April — or roughly one in 10 Missourians.
The request for personal data came in a letter dated May 6 from the USDA, which oversees the program. It was signed by Gina Brand, the agency’s senior policy advisor for integrity.
The letter requests personally-identifiable information from SNAP recipients including names, dates of birth, addresses and Social Security numbers, along with total SNAP benefits received.
The data is required to cover Jan. 1, 2020 to present. Each state is currently a “SNAP information silo,” the letter said.
The federal agency will use the data requested to “ensure program integrity,” which will include verifying eligibility, the letter states.
The action will “ensure Americans in need receive assistance, while at the same time safeguarding taxpayer dollars from abuse,” Brand wrote.
If states don’t comply, federal funding could be withheld, the letter warned.
The letter cited an executive order by President Donald Trump requiring that federal agencies “take all necessary steps” to ensure the federal government has “unfettered access to comprehensive data from all state programs that receive federal funding,” including data held by third-party entities.
The goal of such efforts, according to the executive order, is to “detect overpayments and fraud.”
The Department of Government Efficiency — part of the executive branch under Trump — reportedly has used that order to combine personal data collected from several agencies to help the federal government track and arrest immigrants for deportation.
USDA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent but previously told NPR: “All personally identifiable information will comply with all privacy laws and regulations and will follow responsible data handling requirements.”
A spokesperson for Fidelity National Information Services, a vendor Missouri contracts with to distribute SNAP benefits, said by email that the company is “committed to safeguarding privacy and ensuring rigorous standards for data protection and compliance” and that it is “supporting the USDA and our state partners in their efforts to determine next steps.”
A lawsuit filed last week by SNAP participants, a privacy organization and national hunger organization argued the request violates federal privacy laws and skirts safeguards designed to protect participants’ data. The lawsuit asked a federal court to halt the data collection.
The lawsuit, plaintiffs wrote, seeks to ensure that the federal government “is not exploiting our most vulnerable citizens by disregarding longstanding privacy protections, depriving the public of critical information regarding data collection and protections, and eviscerating the public’s right to comment on the mass collection and consolidation by the federal government of sensitive, personal data of tens of millions of individuals who rely on federal food assistance benefits.”
The efforts come as Congress considers deep cuts to the SNAP program that could cost Missouri $400 million and result in thousands of families losing aid.
Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com.