A federal judge ruled Monday that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has no right under federal law to access sensitive personal information at the Department of Education, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Department of the Treasury.
District Judge Deborah Boardman, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, said the federal agencies likely violated the Administrative Procedure Act by giving DOGE access to the sensitive data in defiance of the Privacy Act, which governs how federal agencies can collect, maintain and release personal information.
“No matter how important or urgent the President’s DOGE agenda may be, federal agencies must execute it in accordance with the law. That likely did not happen in this case,” Judge Boardman wrote.
The judge noted that people affiliated with DOGE had been granted access to systems that contain a wide variety of personal information, including Social Security numbers, dates of birth, banking and income information, physical addresses and demographic information such as marital and citizenship status.
Boardman’s ruling was in response to a lawsuit from a coalition of labor unions against Musk’s DOGE last month. The suit, led by the American Federation of Teachers, sought to prevent DOGE from accessing private data about millions of U.S. union members at the Education Department, the Treasury Department and the OPM.
The judge issued a preliminary injunction against the the Education Department, Treasury Department and OPM, barring them from sharing sensitive data about the plaintiffs with DOGE associates.
In issuing the order, Boardman noted that when Congress created the Privacy Act in 1974, many lawmakers were reacting to concerns that government abuse could result from officials or agencies being able to quickly assemble dossiers containing highly sensitive personal information about people and their family members.
“Those concerns are just as salient today,” Boardman said.
The Trump administration appealed Boardman’s order to a federal appeals court later Monday.