A federal judge on Monday temporarily barred the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing troves of sensitive personal data from federal agencies.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman ruled that the Department of Education and its employees may not disclose to DOGE the personally identifying information of six Americans and the members of five union organizations who sued three agencies over DOGE’s access to their sensitive data.
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is similarly barred from disclosing the personal data of the plaintiffs with any OPM employee working “principally” on the DOGE agenda.
However, the same rule does not apply to the Department of Treasury, from which Boardman declined to banish DOGE. She wrote in a footnote that a different federal judge already granted a preliminary injunction effectuating the relief plaintiffs sought against Treasury.
“The Court finds that the plaintiffs have met their burden for the extraordinary relief they seek,” the judge wrote in a 33-page ruling.
The six Americans sued the Treasury Department, Department of Education and OPM over DOGE’s access to personally identifiable information they gave the government while collecting veterans benefits, applying for student loans and working as federal employees.
Five union organizations, whose members’ personal data is also stored within the systems DOGE accessed, also joined the lawsuit.
Altogether, the plaintiffs amount to about 2 million people.
Xiaonan April Hu, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said during a hearing last Tuesday that DOGE’s access to the systems amounts to an “unlawful disclosure” of private information to people outside the government.
“It’s real. It’s imminent. It’s ongoing,” Hu said.
The challengers claim DOGE’s actions violate the Privacy Act of 1974, which was passed in response to the Watergate scandal and provides safeguards against privacy violations. In court filings, they accused the agencies of “abandoning their duties as guardians and gatekeepers” of millions of Americans’ sensitive information.
The plaintiffs sought broader relief that would have barred DOGE from accessing anyone’s sensitive personal data. But the judge signaled that such relief would be far too broad, instead limiting DOGE’s access to only the plaintiffs’ data.
“Your proposed order frankly is way too broad,” Boardman said during the hearing.
But when Justice Department lawyers called the challenge “novel,” the judge pushed back.
“This is of the government’s making. It’s the government that authorized this global access to the DOGE team,” Boardman said. “So they’re just responding to an action the government did.”
Boardman questioned the Justice Department over the specific “purposes or tasks” assigned to DOGE workers, attempting to determine whether access to personal information could be warranted.
Justice Department lawyer Emily Hall pointed to President Trump’s executive order directing DOGE to “maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”
“That couldn’t be more broad,” Boardman said, prompting Hall’s response that the goal is broad, as Trump is seeking to implement “sweeping changes.”
The judge zeroed in on three DOGE staffers in leadership positions — Tom Krause, Adam Ramada and Greg Hogan — and asked whether they needed the unfettered access to personal information, like Social Security numbers and bank account information, they appear to have.
Hall claimed they do in order to evaluate systems of records and programs in their aim to “better modernize.”
Ramada’s team, for example, is responsible for assessing the student loan system and may need access to borrowers’ incomes to understand their ability to repay loans, while the OPM writ large is “acting as representatives of the DOGE” to implement Trump’s orders, Hall said.
The case is one of more than a dozen pending lawsuits that challenge DOGE’s structure or its access to systems at various federal departments. Though billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk is said to be leading its sweeping cost-cutting efforts, the White House said in court filings that Musk is technically not part of DOGE, instead serving as a senior adviser to the president.
Boardman’s decision to grant the temporary restraining order in part comes on the heels of several small victories for DOGE.
A federal judge last week refused the request of 14 Democratic state attorneys general to immediately impose wide-ranging restrictions on DOGE after finding they had not made the necessary showing of irreparable harm.
A different judge also declined to block DOGE from accessing student borrower data at the Education Department.
And a judge refused a group of unions’ request to block DOGE from accessing two federal departments and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
