Following the judge’s ruling this week, the plaintiffs are still seeking to delete or erase any copies of sensitive OPM data that DOGE agents still possess.
Drew Friedman
Last year, the Office of Personnel Management illegally granted the Department of Government Efficiency access to sensitive federal personnel data, a federal judge found.
Judge Denise Côté ruled Tuesday that OPM violated federal privacy law and circumvented established cybersecurity practices when it shared records on millions of past, current and aspiring federal employees with DOGE agents in early 2025.
A preliminary injunction order from Cote last year has blocked access to DOGE agent data since June 2025, after the judge ruled that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in their allegations in the case. The decision rendered this week finally upholds the plaintiffs’ arguments.
“At this point, there is no significant dispute regarding the underlying conduct. Defendants barely defend its legality, instead relying on what has happened since to argue that the case is moot and potential relief is not necessary,” Cote, a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, wrote in Tuesday’s ruling.
The Democracy Defenders Fund, one of the organizations representing the plaintiffs in the case, called this week’s ruling a “resounding victory.”
“The federal government did not have to hand over the personal data of tens of millions of people to Elon Musk and DOGE,” said former U.S. Ambassador Norm Eisen, now executive chairman of the Democracy Defenders Fund. “Privacy law exists for a reason, and today the court made clear that no special government agency or employee like Musk is above the law.”
In February 2025, the American Federation of Government Employees led a group of plaintiffs to sue OPM for allowing DOGE to access federal employee records – including personally identifiable information (PII) – early in the Trump administration.
The plaintiffs argued that OPM violated federal law by granting “unvetted and untrained” DOGE agents broad access to multiple systems that house personal data on millions of people, including current and former federal employees.
Trump administration lawyers argued that DOGE officers had “modernization responsibilities” and were acting under the direction of the executive order that created DOGE. But Cote ruled that IT modernization should not require access to federal employees’ confidential personal information.
Following Cote’s June 2025 preliminary injunction, OPM told the court that it began revoking DOGE agents’ authorizations. None have had access to sensitive personal data since September 2025. Only one former DOGE agent remains at OPM and he currently cannot access the personal information of federal employees, according to government court documents.
Although DOGE was dissolved, Cote found that its termination only reduced, but did not completely eliminate, the possibility of illegal data access occurring again.
“This finding in no way diminishes the admirable efforts made by OPM during this litigation to strengthen its protocols,” Cote said. “But the misconduct at issue…resulted from the failure of certain individuals to follow the privacy law and honor the safeguards already in place at OPM.” »
In a previous opinion on the case, Cote also opined that “ultimately, it is no more difficult for OPM to ignore these new protocols than it is to ignore its old procedures.”
Although Tuesday’s order resolves the main legal arguments in the case, Cote said the scope of the relief will be considered in a separate ruling. The plaintiffs still seek to delete or erase all copies of OPM data that DOGE agents still possess.
“We have long known that OPM broke the law by recklessly disclosing personnel records to DOGE agents. The court has now confirmed it,” said F. Mario Trujillo, senior attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represents the plaintiffs in the case. “OPM and DOGE now owe it to the unions and federal workers who brought this case to clean up the cybersecurity mess they created.”
An OPM spokesperson declined to comment, saying the agency does not comment on pending litigation. Emails from Federal News Network seeking comment from the White House and Justice Department were not returned.
In recent months, more details have come to light about DOGE’s actions during the early days of the Trump administration. The Government Accountability Office reported in August that many of DOGE’s claims about cost savings are not supported by evidence and some are simply incorrect. But the GAO also found that even though many DOGE agents have left their posts, information about who they were and what they did remains unclear.
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