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A federal judge ruled this week that allowing the president’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staff access to personal records at the U.S. Department of Education violates the Privacy Act.
Workers affiliated with DOGE are now barred from accessing these records until 8 a.m. on March 10, according to the ruling issued on Monday.
The court case mainly concerns two executive orders issued by President Donald Trump in his first days in office.
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One, “Establishing and Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency,’” created the Elon Musk-led department to “(modernize) Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”
The second order, “Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Workforce Optimization Initiative,” explicitly seeks to transform the federal bureaucracy by reducing the federal workforce, restricting hiring, and “eliminating waste, bloat, and insularity.”
According to court documents, DOGE-affiliated individuals within the Department of Education and Office of Personnel Management were granted access to millions of people’s sensitive personal information, including “bank account numbers; Social Security numbers; dates of birth; physical and email addresses; disability status; income and asset information; marital status; demographic information; employment records such as performance appraisals and personnel actions; and information about family members, such as their financial status, dates of birth, and addresses.”
The government argued that these individuals needed access to these records because they are “assist(ing) the Department of Education with auditing contract, grant, and related programs for waste, fraud, and abuse, including an audit of the Department of Education’s federal student loan portfolio to ensure it is free from, among other things, fraud, duplication, and ineligible loan recipients.”
The plaintiffs in this case include unions and membership organizations representing federal employees, student aid recipients, and other recipients of federal benefits, including the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). They allege that the DOGE affiliates were given unrestricted access to their personal information, and “none of the DOGE affiliates needs to know their personal information to perform their duties.”
While the government argued that DOGE affiliates at the Department of Education needed access to this information to conduct audits of the student loan programs, U.S. District Court Judge Deborah L. Boardman found that neither the government nor the DOGE affiliates could explain why they “need such comprehensive, sweeping access to the plaintiffs’ records to audit student loan programs for waste, fraud, and abuse or to conduct cost-estimate analyses.”
“It may be that, with additional time, the government can explain why granting such broad access to the plaintiffs’ personal information is necessary for DOGE affiliates at Education to do their jobs,” the judge continued, “but for now, the record before the Court indicates they do not have a need for these records in the performance of their duties.”
The Privacy Act restricts how personal information can be disseminated by federal agencies and bars agencies from sharing this information in most cases.
Boardman granted a temporary restraining order for the plaintiffs against the Department of Education and Office of Personnel Management but denied one against the U.S. Department of the Treasury because that claim is being addressed in another case.
AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a press release that the ruling was a significant decision.
“We brought this case to uphold people’s privacy, because when people give their financial and other personal information to the federal government — namely to secure financial aid for their kids to go to college, or to get a student loan — they expect that data to be protected and used for the reasons it was intended, not appropriated for other means,” Weingarten said.
The ruling notes that the injunction “does not prevent the President from effectuating the administration’s policies. It prevents the disclosure of the plaintiffs’ sensitive personal information to DOGE affiliates who, on the current record, do not have a need to know the information to perform their duties.”
