[A]mong critics and legal challengers, the issue of DOGE’s data access has become paramount.
Key to his effort is a small army of acolytes, most prominently young men with backgrounds in tech, being dispatched across government agencies and demanding access to databases that are usually only available to a small number of regulated and trained employees at each agency.
The issue has spurred at least 11 lawsuits that claim DOGE has illegally accessed significant swaths of Americans’ personal information. All claim that DOGE has violated the Privacy Act of 1974….
At the Education Department, plaintiffs say students’ information was gathered through student loan applications. At the Treasury Department, plaintiffs allege that DOGE accessed systems that reveal Americans’ private tax information. (NBC News has confirmed that a DOGE employee at the IRS is expected to seek access to the agency’s Integrated Data Retrieval System, which agency employees use to access taxpayer accounts.)
Another lawsuit accuses DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management, akin to the federal government’s human resource department, of accessing the personal information and background checks of not just people who work for the U.S., the country’s largest employer, but people who have simply applied for jobs in government. At the Department of Labor, plaintiffs say DOGE workers demanded full access, including to sensitive documents like complaints about workplace health and safety concerns, ranging from black lung to the identities of workers who have made complaints. (Records seen by NBC News show that the Labor Department authorized DOGE employees to use software to remotely transfer large file sets.)
In addition to those legal claims, DOGE has tried to gain or gained access to people’s sensitive personal data from at least three other agencies. The top official at the Social Security Administration, Michelle King, left her job this weekend after she refused a DOGE request for access, according to two sources familiar with the situation, including personally identifiable information (PII) like Americans’ names and financial records.
Earlier this month, employees at the U.S. Agency for International Development were placed on administrative leave after trying to prevent DOGE employees from accessing classified systems and security clearance information on agency employees. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that DOGE has been given authorization to access Federal Emergency Management Agency data, including sensitive information about disaster victims.
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