The Trump administration illegally authorized Doge to access workers’ data, according to prosecution
The Trump administration has violated a federal privacy law by leaving workers from the Elon Musk Government Ministry (DOGE) access to millions of government workers, defenders of privacy, including the Electronic Foundation (EFF), according to a new trial filed in the name of two unions work parties and a group of current and old federal employees.
The groups allege that Doge and the Staff Management Office (OPM) have violated the 1974 privacy lawwhich protects the information maintained by federal agencies. The OPM maintains information on “tens of millions of current and former federal employees, entrepreneurs and candidates”, including handicaps, information on history checks and health files, according to the trial. The agency also has information on workers in “very sensitive roles for which even recognition of their government employment can be problematic”, as workers from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), he adds . Working groups allege that Musk and its DOGE employees have been authorized to access the OPM IT networks that stored this information even before being considered as government employees, putting sensitive information from workers in danger.
DOGE does not “have a legitimate and legitimate need for such access” to OPM files, according to the groups. They ask the American district court of the South District of New York to suspend access to the members of DOGE staff to the system and to prevent them from using the information they have already been illegally accessible. They also want the court to order any copy of data illegally accessible to be destroyed.
OPM already faces a A separate trial Working groups on the “Fork in the Road” offer of the Trump administration of the deferred resignation, which promised the payment that Congress had not yet affected. A federal judge has S0 very delayed The deadline for federal workers to choose to take the offer, Pending additional consideration by the court.
Although the Trump administration insisted that Doge’s staff members have legally accessed information and have the necessary releases to do so, they did not provide many details on the authorizations. Government employees have expressed skepticism that the inexperienced framework for Doge staff could have crossed the typically arduous release process to access sensitive information in the few weeks that Trump was in office. The trial insists on the fact that any exception to the law on privacy, as for the purposes of application of the law, is not applicable in this case.
Increased access to OPM information could create new vulnerabilities for this data, Experts fear. After all, the OPM databases were violated in 2014resulting in sensitive information on more than 20 million compromises.
Unions and employees “reasonably fear the harmful consequences of disclosure and use” of information accessible by DOGE, says the trial. “President Trump, the Dogeyer, Elon Musk, and others have repeatedly threatened to dismiss government employees whom they consider to be unfair. They have pretended several times and illegally to dismiss government employees and to close whole departments. And they have implemented parish policies that seek to dismiss government employees according to their gender identity. »»
“The White House will continue to fight these battles in court, and we expect to be justified,” said the press secretary of the White House, Karoline Leavitt in a statement. “The president has perfectly the right to exercise his executive authority on behalf of the American people, who gave him a historic mandate to govern on November 5.”
Correction, February 11: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified President Donald Trump as one of the accused of the trial. He is not directly appointed as a defendant.
