OPM Unlawfully Let DOGE Access Sensitive Federal Employee Data, Judge Rules
Judge Denise Cote said OPM gave 20 DOGE employees access to sensitive records without a credible need, and the court will later decide any remedy.
- On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote ruled that the Office of Personnel Management violated the Privacy Act by granting Department of Government Efficiency agents access to sensitive federal employee records without credible justification.
- President Donald Trump established the Department of Government Efficiency early in 2025, and twenty DOGE employees gained access to OPM systems housing federal worker records between January 20 and March 6, 2025.
- In February 2025, the American Federation of Government Employees led plaintiffs suing the administration, arguing the government failed to justify why unvetted DOGE agents needed access to confidential personally identifiable information on federal employees.
- Despite DOGE dissolving in July, Cote found the termination did not eliminate the risk of recurrence, ruling the government's actions violated federal privacy law and established procedures could not prevent such misconduct.
- "Victory for data privacy," said F. Mario Trujillo, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as the court considers whether to mandate deletion of any federal employee data extracted by DOGE agents.
16 Articles
16 Articles
OPM Barely Bothered Defending DOGE’s Access To Federal Employee Data. Court Rules It Was Illegal.
Remember back when Elon Musk was handed the keys of our federal government with basically zero accountability or oversight? All sorts of bad stuff happened, but one of the lawsuits we've been covering was the American Federation of Gov't Employees (AFGE) along with the Association of Administrative Law Judges and a few individual federal workers…
Court: OPM Illegally Gave Employee Info To DOGE
FedScoop reports: A U.S. district judge in New York found that the Office of Personnel Management violated federal privacy law and flouted cybersecurity practices when it shared federal employee records with members of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency. In a Tuesday ruling, Judge Denise Cote of the U.S. District Court for the Southern … The post Court: OPM Illegally Gave Employee Info To DOGE appeared first on Joe.My…
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