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GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A judge agreed Monday to temporarily bar two federal agencies from disclosing records containing sensitive personal information to representatives of billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland, ruled that the Department of Education and the Office of Personnel Management likely violated the Privacy Act by disclosing people’s personal information to DOGE without their consent.
Boardman issued a temporary restraining order requested by attorneys for unions and groups representing current and former federal employees.
The judge, who heard arguments on the request last week, said her order doesn’t prevent President Donald Trump, a Republican, from “effectuating the administration’s policies.”
“It prevents the disclosure of the plaintiffs’ sensitive personal information to DOGE affiliates who, on the current record, do not have a need to know the information to perform their duties,” she wrote.
The personal information that DOGE representatives accessed includes bank account numbers, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and addresses. DOGE could use the information “to create a comprehensive picture of the plaintiffs’ familial, professional, or financial affairs,” the judge said.
“This continuing, unauthorized disclosure of the plaintiffs’ sensitive personal information to DOGE affiliates is irreparable harm that money damages cannot rectify,” wrote Boardman, who was nominated by Trump’s predecessor, President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
The lawsuit’s plaintiffs include the American Federation of Teachers, the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
AFT president Randi Weingarten said Boardman’s ruling is “a significant decision that puts a firewall between actors who we believe lack the legitimacy and authority to access Americans’ personal data and who are using it inappropriately.”
“We brought this case to uphold people’s privacy, because when people give their financial and other personal information to the federal government — namely to secure financial aid for their kids to go to college, or to get a student loan — they expect that data to be protected and used for the reasons it was intended, not appropriated for other means,” Weingarten said in a statement.
Musk has been leading Trump’s efforts to overhaul and downsize the federal government. Over the weekend, he demanded that federal employees explain their accomplishments or risk being fired, prompting attorneys for the workers to say in a lawsuit in California on Monday that he had violated the law.
Trump has defended Musk’s actions as necessary to root out fraud, waste and abuse in the federal government.
DOGE has cut Education Department contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
On Saturday, department spokesperson Madison Biedermann said it had cancelled a national test that measures the reading and math abilities of 17-year-olds.
The Long-Term Trend Assessment, launched in the 1970s, is administered every four years for students who are ages 9, 13 and 17. The test for 17-year-olds hasn’t been offered since 2012 because of budget constraints. Its elimination will affect the collection of long-term data on the progress of students whose education was disrupted by the pandemic.
The tests are part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Biedermann said the cuts do not affect the main NAEP assessments of fourth, eighth and twelfth graders, which are given every two years and are known as “the nation’s report card.” Biedermann did not provide a reason for the cuts.
“The agency continues to support NAEP and transparency around measures of student outcomes,” Biedermann said.
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