Trump knocks down barriers around personal data, raising alarm; The Hill, June 25, 2025

 AMALIA HUOT-MARCHAND, The Hill ; Trump knocks down barriers around personal data, raising alarm

"The Trump administration is shattering norms around the handling of Americans’ personal — and sometimes private — information, dismantling barriers around data in the name of government efficiency and rooting out fraud. 

Privacy experts say the moves bring the country closer to a surveillance state, increase the government’s vulnerability to cyberattacks and risk pushing people away from public services. 

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has sought and nearly always received access to Social Security numbers, addresses, medical histories, tax histories, welfare benefits, bank accounts, immigration statuses and federal employee databases.

These moves have shattered walls that have long kept data within the agencies that collect it."

An Apparent Cyberattack Hushes the British Library; The New York Times, November 3, 2023

 Alex Marshall, The New York Times; An Apparent Cyberattack Hushes the British Library

"Tasmina Islam, a lecturer in cybersecurity education at King’s College London said in an email that the motivation for attacking a library could be financial.a

“Cybercriminals can access a lot of information from a library, including users’ personal data,” she said. Libraries also “store electronic books, research articles and various intellectual properties, all of which cybercriminals can exploit for illegal distribution,” Islam added.

The British Library incident “served as a warning for other libraries and institutions to assess their own security measures thoroughly,” she said."