Archive profile summary
Political-data company founded in 2011 that describes itself as core data infrastructure for Republican and conservative campaigns, parties and advocacy organizations, maintaining a national voter file enriched with consumer and client-generated data.
Why this entry is in the archive
A durable private data-infrastructure node linking party voter data, commercial enrichment and campaign field feedback.
What it does
Data Trust says it collects, enriches, analyzes and maintains voter and electoral data for right-of-center clients.
Its system combines voter-file information with consumer data and feedback generated by participating campaigns and organizations, creating a continuing data-enrichment loop.
RNC relationship
FEC records document a Data Exchange and Enhancement Agreement between Data Trust and the Republican National Committee in which voter-list data and enhancements were exchanged at fair-market value.
That arrangement is a documented data relationship, not evidence that Data Trust and the RNC are the same organization.
Scale and infrastructure
Data Trust currently describes itself as serving thousands of campaigns and tracking thousands of data points across hundreds of millions of individuals.
Those figures are the company’s own current descriptions and should be understood as organizational claims unless independently audited.
Relationship with i360
Washington Post reporting documented a 2015 data-sharing arrangement between Data Trust and i360 for the 2016 cycle. A data-sharing agreement does not mean the two databases permanently merged or that either company owns the other.
Evidence limits
A voter-data profile can contain registration, participation history, modeled preferences and consumer attributes; it does not reveal a person’s secret-ballot choice.
Nothing currently published in the Heather Honey federal-data case identifies Data Trust as the source of Honey’s 48.4 million records.
Timeline
- RNC and Data Trust formalize a voter-data exchange
FEC records describe an agreement under which RNC voter-list data and Data Trust enhancements were exchanged at equivalent fair-market value.
- Data Trust and i360 create an exchange pathway
Washington Post reporting documents a data-sharing arrangement between the RNC-aligned Data Trust system and i360 for the 2016 cycle.
Relationship records
Republican National Committee → Data Trust
Entered Data Exchange and Enhancement Agreement exchanging voter-list data and equal-value enhancements · 2011; renewed 2014
Evidence status: documented
Data Trust → i360
Entered data-sharing arrangement for the 2016 election cycle, according to Washington Post reporting · 2015
Evidence status: documented