A Federal judge in Baltimore temporarily blocked the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing millions of Americans’ sensitive data at the Social Security Administration (SSA) on Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) on Thursday blocking SSA’s acting Commissioner Leland Dudek and Chief Information Officer Michael Russo from granting DOGE access to “any SSA system of record containing personally identifiable information.”
The judge particularly blocked DOGE’s access to several SSA data systems, including the Enterprise Data Warehouse, Numident, Master Beneficiary Record, and Supplemental Security Record.
Lawyers representing a coalition of unions that filed the complaint against the SSA argued that Dudek and Russo allowed DOGE to access sensitive information including tax returns, employment and wage data, medical histories, and personal addresses of millions of people.
The order requires employees affiliated with DOGE to delete all personally identifiable information it obtained since Jan. 20 that is not held anonymously. It also prevents DOGE from installing software, removing software, and accessing, altering, or disclosing data from SSA software it has received since Jan. 20.
The judge ordered that any DOGE employee must go through training and background checks to access future sensitive information from SSA.
“No data is to be provided unless and until the persons to whom access is provided have received all training that is typically required of individuals granted access to SSA data systems,” Hollander wrote in the TRO.
The judge’s order also requires SSA to file a status report by March 24 on the actions taken to remove DOGE employees’ access from its systems in compliance with the order.
The judge primarily took issue with the broad access officials at the SSA gave to DOGE with sensitive records that the agency maintained. She argued that employees did not go through official channels to get the levels of access they obtained.
“At best, there was only a vague and conclusory assertion that access to the entirety of SSA’s systems of records was needed to root out fraud,” Hollander wrote in her memorandum opinion.
“SSA’s decision to provide such access upended the longstanding policy and practice that had governed SSA with respect to access to [personally identifiable information],” she continued.
The judge’s decision comes after a former senior SSA official filed a declaration earlier this month claiming that DOGE cut cybersecurity and privacy corners when accessing sensitive data at the agency.
