To enhance information-sharing capabilities between Federal law enforcement and State agencies to detect, investigate, and prosecute fraud in certain Federal programs, and to protect individual privacy.

Records moved from a state to the Justice Department would have to be encrypted. Only approved staff could open them.

The Justice Department would have to destroy the records when the investigation or court case is over. The bill sets no deadline for doing so and requires no outside audit.

Federal agencies could use the information only for fraud-related law enforcement. They could not pass it on for unrelated agency work or for commercial use. The bill also points to the Privacy Act of 1974, which already covers how federal agencies handle personal records.

Your state holds your Medicaid, SNAP, or unemployment file. The state would have to hand it to the Justice Department whenever the Attorney General asks in writing about suspected fraud.

A written request from the Attorney General would be enough. The bill does not require a judge's approval, and it does not require telling the person whose records are sent.

The bill names four kinds of records: identity checks, payment logs, doctors' billing statements, and some demographic details. It then lets the Attorney General ask for anything else the office finds useful to the case.

Twelve programs are named, from Medicaid and SNAP to disaster grants and broadband money. The Attorney General could also reach any other program that sends money to states, if the office labels it open to fraud.

The Justice Department would gain a direct line to state records when it looks into fraud in aid programs. The duty on states covers both investigating and prosecuting.

The Attorney General would have to tell the House and Senate Judiciary Committees each year how many requests went out, which programs they touched, and how many convictions followed.