OTI Urges Congress to Modernize the Privacy Act

The Open Technology Institute at New America submitted comments urging Congress to modernize the Privacy Act by integrating privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) into federal data systems and reinforcing core privacy protections. Our recommendations address growing concerns about overreach by entities like the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), whose expansive data practices expose critical gaps in current law.

We emphasize that PETs—such as differential privacy, secure multi-party computation, and encryption—enable responsible data use while protecting individual privacy. When combined with principles like purpose limitation and data minimization, PETs serve as a technical backstop against misuse, preventing harm even when legal safeguards are circumvented.

Our full set of recommendations includes:

• Adopting PETs across federal systems to embed privacy protections at the technical level.
• Clarifying and narrowing privacy law exceptions, particularly “routine use” and “need to know” provisions.
• Upholding data minimization and purpose limitation as foundational principles for data use.
• Providing agencies with implementation guidance, including actionable steps from our recent report, How to Protect Government Data with Privacy-Enhancing Technology.

We urge Congress to adopt a comprehensive reform approach—one that integrates both strong legal principles and proven technical safeguards to ensure privacy protections are embedded from the outset.