The Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service administers numerous payment systems containing sensitive personal information—such as social security numbers, taxpayer ID numbers, information on children, and home addresses—from tens of millions of individuals. 

Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) illegally accessed (and continues to access) this information without authorization.

The security risks from this ongoing breach have only escalated. Not only have Musk and his associates unlawfully obtained sensitive payment documents and millions of individuals’ personal information, but screenshots of sensitive information apparently leaked from Treasury systems have also been posted publicly on Twitter/X. Publishing such sensitive information from a government database presents urgent privacy, safety, and national security threats.

EPIC and an individual filed suit against DOGE, OPM, and the Treasury for the unlawful seizure of payment system data and personnel records. Represented by Democracy Forward and EPIC, this challenge aims to shut down unlawful access to agency data systems at Treasury and the Office of Personnel Management and restore the privacy and security safeguards that the Elon Musk-run DOGE has blatantly violated.

As the complaint explains, the Musk-run DOGE illegally forced the Treasury Department and Office of Personnel Management to disclose vast stores of personal information to unauthorized, untrained personnel. This included locking out civil servants and seizing “full access” to the government’s critical payment systems, which contain the sensitive personal information of millions of Americans and disburses trillions of dollars every year.

This unlawful access to federal personal data systems has gone far beyond any legitimate government purpose. Musk and his associates have violated numerous federal statutes restricting the handling and use of personal data and lack any of the requisite training to securely handle sensitive personal information.

The plaintiffs sought a court order to block the Musk-run DOGE’s unauthorized access to the Treasury and OPM’s databases, order disgorgement of all unlawfully obtained information, and ensure that measures are taken to prevent a data breach of this scale from harming Americans again.

However, on February 21, the court denied the request to block the unauthorized access while the judicial process develops.