Privacy Victory! Judge Grants Preliminary Injunction in OPM/DOGE Lawsuit

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NEW YORK–In a victory for personal privacy, a New York federal district court judge today granted a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) disclosure of records to DOGE and its agents.

Judge Denise L. Cote of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York found that OPM violated the Privacy Act and bypassed its established cybersecurity practices under the Administrative Procedures Act. The court will decide the scope of the injunction later this week. The plaintiffs have asked the court to halt DOGE agents’ access to OPM records and for DOGE and its agents to delete any records that have already been disclosed. OPM’s databases hold highly sensitive personal information about tens of millions of federal employees, retirees, and job applicants.

“The plaintiffs have shown that the defendants disclosed OPM records to individuals who had no legal right of access to those records,” Cote found. “In doing so, the defendants violated the Privacy Act and departed from cybersecurity standards that they are obligated to follow. This was a breach of law and of trust. Tens of millions of Americans depend on the Government to safeguard records that reveal their most private and sensitive affairs.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Lex Lumina LLP, Democracy Defenders Fund, and The Chandra Law Firm requested the injunction as part of their ongoing lawsuit against OPM and DOGE on behalf of two labor union

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