Finding Lost Government Data

This guide provides strategies for retrieving missing or potentially altered federal data, as well as locating archived versions of government websites. The following options highlight effective tools and resources to help you verify data or website content that may no longer be publicly available or may have been altered.

1. Search data.gov

• Begin by searching data.gov to confirm whether the data is truly unavailable.
• It’s possible the dataset has been relocated to a different page or otherwise obscured. 

2. Use the Internet Archive Wayback Machine

• The GovWayback tool is a specialized resource for retrieving federal government data archived in the Wayback Machine.
• By appending “wayback.org” to the URL of a .gov website, you can quickly access archived versions of government pages. 
• It works with many .gov domains, but is not comprehensive

3. Check with the Data Rescue’s Project Data Rescue Tracker

• The Data Rescue Project offers a Data Rescue Tracker, a tool that monitors the status of federal datasets and can help locate rescued data.

4. Explore additional archives or data repositories listed in this guide to locate data.

• Check out the “Find Data in Your Subject or Discipline” section by selecting the tab on the left in the navigation menu.

If you suspect a government webpage has been edited, altered, or redacted (rather than completely removed), the following steps can help identify such alterations:

1. Compare archived versions using the Wayback Machine

• Use the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to compare older snapshots of the web page with more recent versions. This can reveal subtle differences that may indicate redactions or content changes. 
• Tip: Consider using a tool like GovDiff to compare the text of the pages and quickly spot the differences.

2. Review the End of Term Archives

• Government websites undergo periodic archiving through the End of Term Archives.
• These archives capture snapshots of federal websites at the end of each administration.
• Check these resources for potentially unaltered versions of government content. 

For users concerned that specific data may have been removed or altered without public documentation, these steps will help confirm any suspicions:

1. Compare snapshots of the dataset or webpage

• As with the previous methods, utilize the Wayback Machine to compare snapshots of the dataset or webpage over time.
• Pay particular attention to differences in content and file structure.

2. Use comparison tools

• To facilitate a more precise comparison, consider using tools like Diffchecker, or a similar file comparison software tool.
• These can highlight specific changes between current and archived versions, making it easier to spot modifications.

3. Examine metadata and file size

• Review metadata, file size, and timestamps for any inconsistencies.
• Significant reductions in file size, missing metadata, or unexpected changes in modification dates could indicate that parts of the dataset were removed or altered. 

4. Look for external citations

• Search for references to the data in academic papers, reports, or news articles.
• These sources may provide insight into the version of the data that was previously available, potentially highlighting discrepancies with the current publicly available data.