In The Maze Runner, the planet was destroyed by a solar flare which caused a pandemic known as The Flare. The gladers were test subjects that were being experimented on in order to find a cure to the pandemic. These experiments were executed by an organization known as W.C.K.D. At the end of the movie, the gladers escaped the maze and found themselves in W.C.K.D.'s headquarters, which is then raided by what is assumed to be the military. The gladers are taken to helicopters by the military men and are flown towards a society that is in ruins. Ava Paige, a scientist who works for W.C.K.D., can be seen afterwards explaining that the first phase of the experiment was a success and the second is about to begin.

It can be assumed that the government is working with W.C.K.D. in order to develop a cure to The Flare. If this is accurate, then the government is likely overstepping their boundaries when it comes to privacy of data. The gladers had their memory wiped against their will and were likely specifically handpicked for this experiment based off of information that the government had access to. In fact, a survey was done on U.S. adults and 79% reported they had concerns about data use by companies and 64% reported concerns about data use by the government [1]. The government's access of data and potential misuse was an issue discussed in Chapter 6 and it seems clear that the issue is prominent in the film.

References

[1] Brooke Auxier, Lee Rainie, Monica Anderson, Andrew Perrin, Madhu Kumar and Erica Turner, Americans and Privacy: Concerned, Confused and Feeling Lack of Control Over Their Personal Information, (Pew Research Center, November 15, 2019), https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/11/15/americans-and-privacy-concerned-confused-and-feeling-lack-of-control-over-their-personal-information/ (December 3, 2020)