(Reuters)-A federal judge said on Thursday that the Social Security Administration (SSA) probably violated privacy laws by giving Elon Musk technology aide to “unrestricted access” to millions of private Americans data and ordered the suspension of any other record sharing.
Maryland district judge Ellen Lipton Hollander said Musk’s department of government efficiency was intruding on the “personal affairs” of millions of Americans as part of her search for fraud and waste.
“Undoubtedly, eliminating possible fraud, waste and mismanagement in the SSA is in public interest. But that does not mean that the government can disrespect the law to do this,” said Hollander.
The case has shown for the first time the number of personal information to which Doge employees had access to databases, which contain large amounts of confidential information about most Americans.
One of the systems accessed is called Numident, or numerical identification, known within the agency as the “Crown Jewels,” the SSA’s current and former employees told Reuters. It contains personal information from all people who requested or received a social insurance number since the agency was founded in the 1930s.
Doge did not immediately respond to a comment request.
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A White House spokesman criticized the decision in a statement and said Trump “will continue to seek all the legal resources available to ensure that the will of the American people enter into force.”
“This is another judge who abuses the judicial system to try to sabotage the president’s attempts to deliver the government of waste, fraud and abuse,” said spokesman Harrison Fields.
The two unions and an activist group that filed a lawsuit against SSA, Musk, Doge and others claimed in their action that the agency had been “looted” and that Doge members had been installed without proper checking or training, and required access to some of the agency’s most confidential data systems.
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The lawsuit was filed by the Democracy Forward group. Group’s executive president Skye Perryman said the decision was an important victory for data privacy.
“Today, the court has done what responsibility requires-forcing Doge to exclude all traces of the data that he accessed illegally. The Court recognized the real and immediate dangers of the reckless actions of the DOGE and took steps to prevent them,” Perryman said in a statement.
Hollander said that the central point of the case was the decision of the SSA’s new leadership to give 10 doge employees unrestricted access to the records of millions of Americans. She said the SSA lawyers acknowledged that the agency’s leaders had granted Doge access to a “huge amount of records.”
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“The Doge team is essentially involved in probative SSA fishing, looking for a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion. She has launched a search for the proverb -needle needle, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is really in the haystack,” Hollander said.
SSA information information includes social insurance numbers, medical and mental health records, driver’s license information, bank accounts, tax information, income history, birth and marriage records, and employment and employer records, the judge added.
Hollander noted that Doge members had obtained anonymity in the process for fearing for their safety.
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“The defense does not seem to share the concern with the privacy of the millions of Americans whose SSA records have been made available to Doge’s affiliates without their consent, and contain sensitive, confidential and personally identifiable information,” the judge added.
