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EFF has filed a lawsuit against the Musk-led agency Department of Government Efficiency and the Office of Personnel Management over access to sensitive personal data.
The not-for-profit digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), calling on a Federal Court to stop the OPM from disclosing the private information of millions of Americans to Musk and his DOGE workers.
A “coalition of privacy defenders” – Lex Lumina LLP, State Democracy Defenders Fund, and The Chandra Law Firm – joined the EFF in its filing, with the lawsuit’s plaintiffs featuring several prominent unions and government employees, including the American Federation of Government Employees AFL-CIO and the Association of Administrative Law Judges.
As the EFF notes, the information held by OPM represents one of the largest datasets of personal data in the US, and much of that information is highly sensitive, such as Social Security numbers, health records, and data pertaining to background checks.
The EFF lawsuit contends that, under the Privacy Act of 1974, it is illegal to share such data with a third party without the consent of the individuals concerned.
“The Privacy Act makes it unlawful for OPM defendants to hand over access to OPM’s millions of personnel records to DOGE defendants, who lack a lawful and legitimate need for such access,” the complaint said.
“No exception to the Privacy Act covers DOGE defendants’ access to records held by OPM. OPM defendants’ action granting DOGE defendants full, continuing, and ongoing access to OPM’s systems and files for an unspecified period means that tens of millions of federal government employees, retirees, contractors, job applicants, and impacted family members and other third parties have no assurance that their information will receive the protection that federal law affords.”
The legal action by EFF and its co-complainants follows a similar action by a US federal judge last week. US District Judge Paul Engelmayer issued a temporary restraining order blocking DOGE employees from accessing Treasury Department data after a coalition of 19 states filed a lawsuit against President Trump and Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, claiming that Treasury data was being accessed illegally under federal law.
Judge Engelmayer said “irreparable harm” was likely to follow from DOGE access to the data.
“That is both because of the risk that the new policy presents of the disclosure of sensitive and confidential information and the heightened risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hacking,” the judge said.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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