Understanding Federal Data Loss and Future Directions

At just about every presentation, webinar, interview, and hackathon, not to mention in-passing conversations and speculative Bluesky posts, we’re asked: “But exactly how many datasets have been removed since January 2025?”

As we have stated since the start, this is an impossible question to answer for a wide variety of reasons. But a recent report by Christopher Marcum, "The Integrity of Public Access to Federal Data," sheds additional light and nuance on this difficult question.

Some highlights from the report:

• Approximately 3,000-4,000 datasets have been removed from public access, some of which have been captured by data rescue efforts, while the status of others is unknown. 
• Importantly, many data tools have been targeted, while the underlying data remain accessible, either in the original location or through rescue platforms. However, these interpretative and filtering tools are what make the data actually accessible to the public. In other words, rather than data loss, the deprecation of analysis tools reduced the utility and interpretability of the data.
  • The loss of EJ Screen is an example of one of those tools. 
• While frustrating and unprecedented in terms of speed and scope, likely most of the cuts to the infrastructure were legal under the Paperwork Reduction Act.
• Many of the datasets face long-term threats: deep funding cuts lead to loss of personnel, meaning data stewards can spend less time preparing data for sharing, enabling data discovery through robust metadata, and maintaining the necessary infrastructure to understand and use the data.

In addition to Chris Marcum’s excellent report, Data Index has recently released a new tool called the Federal Data Terminations Tracker as a way to keep track of the changes in federal data. We encourage our community to take a look at the new tracker, and if you know of a termination or removal, get in touch with them! You can contact the Tracker folks at this email: removals@dataindex.us. 

As many of us know firsthand, the changes in the federal data ecosystem made by this administration have highlighted the blind spots in federal data oversight and the instability of the infrastructure underlying public access to public data. In addition to tracking removals, Marcum identifies several recommendations for Congress, federal agencies, and other community-based stakeholders. 

One of the major actions YOU can take is to keep track of changes and submit public comments during the revision process.