Agency Case Studies
While there were systemic, government-wide challenges to federal data integrity in 2025 that affected the ecoystem as a whole, there was also a lot of variation between Federal agencies. Federal agencies operate within vastly different statutory authorities, operational environments, and have different, agency-specific cultures around data governance. Those differences directly shape their exposure to data integrity risks and challenges.
Agencies also differ in the sensitivity of the information they steward, the scale and complexity of their holdings, and the governance cultures that shape how data is curated and protected. Some face intense public scrutiny and have mature open government and open data plans; others are less far along with their plans or operate with limited resources, fragmented systems, or competing operational priorities. These contextual factors influence exposure to risk, resilience to disruption, and the feasibility of resisting stressors on the integrity of their open government data. In this chapter, three cases of specific disruptions to the integrity of federal data between 2025 and 2026 at different agencies are profiled. These are: apportionments data takedown by the Office of Management & Budget; the collateral damage to data assets from the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development; and reproducing research by Freilich & Kesselheim (Data Manipulation within the US Federal Government, 2025) on undocumented manipulation of metadata changes to datasets by the United States Department of Veteran Affairs.
The focus of this chapter is on profiles cases that occurred at non-statistical agencies; that is, agencies not designated as recognized statistical agencies and units (RSAUs) by the Office of Management and Budget. Comprehensive profiles of RSAUs, and the Federal Statistical System in general, are available in two reports by the American Statistical Association (see, Bowen et al. (The Nation’s Data at Risk: 2025 Report, 2025)).
References
- Bowen, C. M. K., Citro, C., Crosby, M., Pierson, S., Potok, N., & Seeskin, Z. (2025). The Nation’s Data at Risk: 2025 Report. The American Statistical Association. https://www.amstat.org/policy-and-advocacy/the-nations-data-at-risk–2025-report
- Freilich, J., & Kesselheim, A. S. (2025). Data manipulation within the US Federal Government. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01249-8/fulltext