A privacy breach at the IRS: Taxpayer data wrongly shared with DHS,
court filing says
[February 12, 2026]
By FATIMA HUSSEIN
WASHINGTON (AP) — The IRS erroneously shared the taxpayer information of
thousands of people with the Department of Homeland Security, as part of
the agencies' controversial agreement to share information on immigrants
for the purpose of identifying and deporting people illegally in the U.S,
according to a new court filing.
The revelation stems from a data-sharing agreement signed last April by
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi
Noem, which allows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to submit
names and addresses of immigrants inside the U.S. illegally to the IRS
for cross-verification against tax records.
A declaration filed Wednesday by IRS Chief Risk and Control Officer
Dottie Romo stated that the IRS was only able to verify roughly 47,000
of the 1.28 million names ICE requested.
For less than 5% of those individuals, the IRS gave ICE additional
address information, potentially violating privacy rules created to
protect taxpayer data.
Romo added that Treasury notified DHS in January of the error and
requested DHS’ assistance in “promptly taking steps to remediate the
matter consistent with federal law,” which includes “appropriate
disposal of any data provided to ICE by IRS based on incomplete or
insufficient address information.”
The IRS-DHS agreement set off litigation between advocacy groups and the
federal government last year.
Public Citizen filed a lawsuit against the Treasury secretary, the
Homeland Security secretary and their respective agencies on behalf of
several immigrant rights groups shortly after the agreement was signed.
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Most recently, a Massachusetts federal court ordered the IRS to stop
sharing residential addresses with ICE. And last November, a federal
court blocked the IRS from sharing information with DHS, saying the
IRS illegally disseminated the tax data of some migrants last
summer.
The news of the erroneous disclosure was initially reported by The
Washington Post. A spokesperson from the IRS did not respond to an
Associated Press request for comment.
Advocates fear that the potential unlawful release of taxpayer
records could be used to maliciously target Americans, violate their
privacy and create other ramifications.
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen said that "this breach
of confidential information was part of the reason we filed our
lawsuit in the first place. Sharing this private taxpayer data
creates chaos and, as we’ve seen this past year, if federal agents
use this private information to track down individuals, it can
endanger lives.”
Tom Bowman, policy counsel for the Center for Democracy & Technology
said that “the improper sharing of taxpayer data is unsafe,
unlawful, and subject to serious criminal penalties.”
“Once taxpayer data is opened to immigration enforcement, mistakes
are inevitable and the consequences fall on innocent people," Bowman
said. "The disclosure of thousands of confidential records
unfortunately shows precisely why strict legal firewalls exist and
have — until now — been treated as an important guardrail.”
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