OPM moved to collect health insurance claims data on 8 million federal workers and retirees, retaining the right to re-identify pseudonymized records

On June 23, 2026, the Office of Personnel Management published a notice in the Federal Register formally establishing a modified system of records that authorizes the agency to collect detailed health insurance claims data on over 8 million federal workers, retirees, and their family members. The data—including medical diagnoses, pharmacy claims, encounter data, and provider details—would be submitted by 65 insurance carriers covering participants in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and the Postal Service Health Benefits Program. New routine uses authorizing OPM to share the collected data with other federal agencies took effect July 23, 2026.

OPM's notice included provisions to pseudonymize records before analysts review them—removing names, addresses, and Social Security numbers while retaining birth years and scrambled member IDs. The agency also expressly reserved the right to re-identify records at a later time, and the notice specified that authorized OPM personnel could access unencrypted member IDs through a salted cryptographic hashing process. Health privacy lawyers warned that pseudonymization was insufficient given that medical conditions alone can narrow identification to specific individuals. Senator Mark Warner called on OPM to collaborate with Congress before implementation, stating the administration had not "earned our trust with Americans' sensitive data."

The collection originated in an initial information collection request OPM published December 12, 2025 (90 Fed. Reg. 57793), which drew criticism from insurance carriers and privacy experts for failing to require any de-identification of the records. Senate and House Democrats subsequently demanded OPM withdraw the plan before the June 23 notice revised but continued to advance it. OPM justified the sweep as necessary to identify fraud and overpayments in federal health benefit programs costing approximately $80 billion annually, though critics noted the legal authority to collect and share identifiable health records without participant consent remained unclear.