The Court Clears a Citizenship Database (09/26/2026)

The biggest privacy decision of the week came on Friday through the Supreme Court’s emergency docket, the route the Court uses when it acts before a case has been fully argued. Information people gave the Social Security Administration for one purpose is going to be used to decide who gets to vote, before a November election. Two other rulings pulled the other way, with an appeals court requiring warrants for cell-site simulators and a jury holding Facebook to what it told users about their privacy.

Top 5 Critical Privacy Alerts

1. The Supreme Court Clears a National Citizenship Database

In an emergency order on Friday, the Supreme Court allowed the administration to revive a national citizenship database built from Social Security numbers and citizenship status, for use in verifying voters ahead of the midterm elections, per PogoWasRight. A federal judge had blocked it, finding that it violated federal privacy laws prohibiting the nonconsensual disclosure of sensitive information.

Operator Note: Data collected for one purpose and reused for another is the oldest pattern in privacy, and error rates in citizenship records fall on real people at the worst moment. Expect naturalized citizens and people with name changes to be the ones who find out first.

2. The Fourth Circuit Requires a Warrant for Cell-Site Simulators

A Fourth Circuit panel ruled that police must get a warrant before using a device that mimics a cellphone tower to locate someone, in a case arising from an arrest by the Baltimore Police Department, per PogoWasRight. Real-time location is a search, and the ruling says so for a technology police have often used without telling courts much about it.

3. A Jury Finds Facebook Liable for Deceiving Users About Privacy

A New Mexico jury found Facebook liable for deceiving users about the privacy protections on its platform, per PogoWasRight. Juries are now weighing what a company told people against what it did, which turns privacy promises in marketing copy into testable claims.

4. Radaris Loses Its Domains

The people-search site Radaris, long known for ignoring requests to remove personal information, has lost its domains in a privacy fight, per PogoWasRight, reporting on Brian Krebs’s coverage. For people who have spent years trying to get their home address off these sites, the enforcement is overdue.

5. Interpol Identifies 126 Terrorism Suspects From Face Biometrics

Specialized officers from 11 countries captured and analyzed face biometrics in an Interpol operation in Tunis in June, building a large database and identifying 126 suspected terrorists, per Biometric Update. Moldova is separately proposing a national facial image registry for police searches and European data exchange, per Biometric Update.

Additional Privacy Alerts

Surveillance & Law Enforcement Technology

• The FBI clears a 1.8 million sample DNA backlog: The Bureau says it eliminated a backlog of federally collected samples waiting to become searchable profiles, as it moves toward Rapid DNA. Biometric Update
• NIST’s age estimation round shows no single best algorithm: The latest results show performance depends on the use case, which matters for every age assurance mandate built on these systems. Biometric Update

The Axe Report is a daily briefing from Grab The Axe. Need help assessing your organization’s security posture? Take our free Human Attack Surface Score assessment.