The White House is rebuilding the systems Americans use to vote, travel, and prove who they are.
The National Design Studio was created to redesign federal websites. Since then, its work has expanded into voter registration, passport services, and the federal government’s main sign-in system. It is doing all of this from inside the Executive Office of the President, where the normal rules around public disclosure do not apply.
We follow the infrastructure, trace the connections, document every claim, and separate what the evidence shows from what remains unknown.
Nine dates that make the case
Upload a passport photo today. Nobody has published what happens to it.
How long is it kept?
Who can see it?
Is it shared?
How would you delete it?
The document meant to answer those questions is called a Privacy Impact Assessment. For these systems, none has been published.
That is not just paperwork. It is how the public is supposed to know what a government system collects, what happens to that information, who can access it, and how long it is kept.
Is the Studio an agency, or is it the President’s staff?
Offices inside the Executive Office of the President aren’t automatically covered by FOIA, the Privacy Act, or the privacy-filing requirement. Since 1971 the test has been whether an office exercises real authority or only advises.
No filings were required and its records stay sealed for years. But an advisory office shouldn’t own passports.gov.
The filings were required, they’re missing, and its records are subject to FOIA right now.
Our reading: an office that owns citizen-facing domains and puts tracking on them is operating, not advising. No court has ruled.
The legal framework, with citationsWhat we can confirm, and what nobody has answered
- The Studio was created by executive order, sits inside the Executive Office of the President, and reports to the White House Chief of Staff.
- A working preview of vote.gov was registered to the Executive Office of the President, certificate logged April 10, 2026.
- Passports.gov is registered to the White House, not the State Department, and returns a sign-in page with no agency seal or privacy notice.
- No Privacy Impact Assessments and no System of Records Notices exist for any of the twelve programs.
- What happens to the vote.gov preview now that the Election Assistance Commission has no quorum.
- Who funds the Studio, and under what appropriation. We found no contracts in USASpending.gov.
- What the custom AutoMonitor script collects, and where the telemetry goes.
- What fbi-kirk-tipline.previews.ndstudio.gov is, and whether the FBI knows it exists.
Read the evidence
Timeline
Twenty-two dated entries showing how the Studio was created, what it built, and what changed along the way.
People
Who holds authority, the DOGE comparison side by side, and how an unpaid appointment discloses less.
Systems
The federal systems tied to the Studio, what we found on each one, and what the responsible agencies say.
Evidence
All 20 documented findings, every open question, our sources, and the legal framework behind the investigation.
Help verify the record
Verify it yourself
Every technical claim comes from a public record. We show you how to check it, and what the evidence does not prove.
File a records request
Use our templates to request the records yourself. A disclosure gives answers. A denial creates a record too.
The oversight brief
A one-page brief for congressional staff, reporters, and anyone else who needs the key facts, open questions, and oversight responsibilities.
See something we missed?
Found a public record, article, court filing, archived page, or other source we should look at?
Every claim on this site is backed by a primary document you can open yourself or reporting we clearly name. Most of the technical findings originated with Audrey Henson at The Drey Dossier, with additional reporting from The Guardian and separate personnel reporting from Wired.
A project of AltNPS, focused on public lands and federal accountability. We are not affiliated with or funded by any government agency, campaign, or political party.
This work is published by AltNPS as a collaborative research project.
Anyone named on this site can challenge or correct an entry at [email protected]. Full standards ↗