Union groups that represent 7.2 million people filed a lawsuit Monday against the Treasury Department for handing over information including Social Security numbers, tax return data and bank account details to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which include the Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Government Employees and the Service Employees International Union, allege that Musk and his surrogates are violating a federal law known as the Privacy Act, which bans the government from sharing individuals’ records without consent or unless a statutory exception applies.
Exceptions include allowing disclosure to “those officers and employees of the agency which maintains the record who have a need for the record in the performance of their duties” or for “routine use” only when an agency formally describes that intended use in the federal register at least 30 days before acting.
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“The agreement comes after a group of union members and retirees sued the Treasury Department alleging that providing DOGE access to the federal government’s massive payment and collections system — and the personal data housed in it — violated federal privacy laws.”