Lex Lumina Sues OPM, DOGE, and Musk for Violating the Privacy of Millions of Federal Government Employees
February 11, 2025 - Lex Lumina leads a coalition of privacy defenders in filing a lawsuit today in New York federal court to stop the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) from disclosing millions of Americans’ private, sensitive information to Elon Musk and his “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). The complaint on behalf of the American Federation of Government Employees AFL-CIO, the Association of Administrative Law Judges, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Judicial Council 1 AFL-CIO, and individual current and former government workers across the country, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, also asks that any data disclosed by OPM to DOGE so far be deleted.
The complaint by Lex Lumina, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Democracy Defenders Fund, and the Chandra Law Firm alleges that OPM and OPM Acting Director Charles Ezell illegally disclosed personnel records to Musk’s DOGE in violation of the federal Privacy Act of 1974. Last week, a federal judge temporarily blocked DOGE from accessing a critical Treasury payment system under a similar lawsuit.
As the federal government is the nation’s largest employer, the records held by OPM represent one of the largest collections of sensitive personal data in the country. In addition to personally identifiable information such as names, social security numbers, and demographic data, these records include work information like salaries and union activities; personal health records and information regarding life insurance and health benefits; financial information like death benefit designations and savings programs; and nondisclosure agreements; and information concerning family members and other third parties referenced in background checks and health records. OPM holds these records for tens of millions Americans, including current and former federal workers and those who have applied for federal jobs. OPM has a history of privacy violations—an OPM breach in 2015 exposed the personal information of 22.1 million people—and its recent actions make its systems less secure.
Read more about the case in EFF’s press release and in Reuters, WIRED, The New York Times, Ars Technica, TechCrunch, and The Verge.
