EFF Leads Fight Against DOGE’s Access to US Federal Workers’ Data

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is leading a coalition to attempt to block Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing the data of millions of government workers in the US.

On February 11, the NGO, alongside individual US federal employees and several employee unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees and the Association of Administrative Law Judges, filed a lawsuit against DOGE and the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

In the complaint, the plaintiffs requested the Court for the Southern District of New York to block DOGE from accessing the private information of millions of Americans stored by OPM and delete any data collected or removed from databases so far.

They claim DOGE’s access to OPM’s data is a breach of the federal Privacy Act of 1974, which protects information maintained by federal agencies.

Elon Musk’s Access to OPM Data Violates US Privacy Act

DOGE was established by President Trump in January to reduce federal spending and eliminate excessive regulations.

Despite its name, DOGE is not a formal department within the US government’s executive branch but a temporary, contracted entity operating under the US DOGE Service (USDS), which was previously called the US Digital Service – and part of OPM.

In the filing, the plaintiffs allege that Musk and other DOGE staff members gained access to OPM computer networks without being government employees.

“This brazen ransacking of Americans’ sensitive data is unheard of in scale,” the EFF said in a public statement.

The NGO also asserted that this practice violates the Privacy Act, which mandates written consent to disclose government records about individuals.

While the Act does contain 12 exceptions to this consent requirement, the EFF argues that DOGE staffers’ access to OPM data does not fall under any of these exceptions.

EFF: DOGE’s Access to OPM Data Puts Federal Employees “At Risk”

As the US federal HR agency, the OPM handles one of the country’s most extensive collection of federal employee data.

“In addition to personally identifiable information (PII) such as names, social security numbers, and demographics, it includes work experience, union activities, salaries, performance, and demotions; health information like life insurance and health benefits; financial information like death benefit designations and savings programs; and classified information nondisclosure agreements,” the NGO said.

The mishandling of this information “could lead to such significant and varied abuses that they are impossible to detail [and put] federal employees at serious risk,” it added.

Potential abuses of the information include privacy violations, risk of political pressure, blackmail, targeted cyber-attacks and broad access to sensitive government operational data.

“Last year, Elon Musk publicly disclosed the names of specific government employees whose jobs he claimed he would cut before he had access to the system. He has also targeted at least one former employee of Twitter,” the EFF said.

This lawsuit comes a few days after a federal judge blocked DOGE’s access to certain Treasury data and ordered the destruction of previously collected information, in response to a lawsuit from a group of US states.

Photo credit: Postmodern Studio/Koshiro K/Shutterstock

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