Archive · 19 Aug 2026
Tracker Finds Trump Administration Changed Nearly 400 Government Datasets
A tracker found that almost 400 government datasets were changed or removed.
Datasets are organized collections of information.
The tracker was created because it is difficult to know when government data disappears.
Federal agencies do not have to tell the public when they stop collecting data.
Some datasets may have become outdated because agencies lacked enough staff.
Other datasets disappeared from government websites without much warning.
Christopher Dick helped explain why tracking these changes is difficult.
The report does not establish that every dataset was deliberately removed.
A tracker says the Trump administration has wiped or changed almost 400 government datasets.
The tracker was created because no clear system showed how many datasets had disappeared.
Federal agencies are not required to publicly report when they end a data collection.
Some datasets became outdated because of staffing shortages, according to the report.
Other datasets disappeared from government websites with little or no public notice.
- Who
- The Trump administration, the dataindex.us tracker group, and Christopher Dick are identified in the report.
- What
- A tracker found that almost 400 government datasets were wiped, changed, or otherwise became unavailable.
- Where
- Federal government websites and data collections.
- Why
- The tracker was built because agencies are not required to announce discontinued data collections, while staffing shortages and limited notice also contributed to datasets becoming stale or disappearing.
- Reported dataset changes
- Almost 400 government datasets were reportedly wiped or changed.
- Tracker
- The losses are being monitored by a tracker created by dataindex.us co-founders.
- Christopher Dick
- Dick is identified as a tracker co-founder and former chief of the Census Bureau’s population evaluation, analysis and projections branch.
- Reporting requirement
- Federal agencies face no requirement to inform the public when they end a data collection.
- Staffing impact
- Some datasets became stale because of staffing shortages.
- Website removals
- Some datasets disappeared from government websites with little notice.