Concerns about DOGE’s data grab fuel push to update privacy law

 

 

Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Massachusetts) today will announce a push to update a 50-year-old federal privacy law in response to concerns that Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service may be accessing and potentially mishandling vast quantities of personal data on American citizens.

The push starts with a request for information, shared with the Tech Brief ahead of its publication, focused on the shortcomings of the 1974 Privacy Act and how it could be modernized for the AI era — and the Musk era.

The call to update a Watergate-era privacy law reflects Democrats’ fear that data accessed by the Department of Government Efficiency will be used for political or personal agendas.

“Unaccountable billionaires, inexperienced programmers, and unvetted political appointees are perpetrating the biggest government privacy scandal since Watergate,” Trahan writes in the request.

Exactly what DOGE is doing with all that data remains unclear.

The White House has said those working with Musk have been granted access to data legally and are using it responsibly to carry out DOGE’s mission of rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.

Reporting by The Post and others suggests that there have been efforts to feed at least some of the data into AI systems. Critics have also alleged that Musk or other administration officials could use the information to further their own interests or go after political targets. And cybersecurity experts have raised concerns that the information could fall into the wrong hands.

The data grab has sparked a flurry of resignations at federal agencies, along with lawsuits alleging that it violates the Privacy Act.

Passed the year former president Richard M. Nixon resigned, the Privacy Act restricts how government agencies can collect, store and use data on U.S. citizens. It prohibits the disclosure of government records about people without their written consent, with some exceptions. Those include broad exceptions for employees within an agency who “need to know” the information to perform their duties, and the sharing of data outside an agency for “routine use.”

At least eight active lawsuits are seeking to block DOGE employees’ access to records on the grounds that it violates the Privacy Act, Wired reported in February. One challenge the plaintiffs face will be showing that DOGE’s access to data isn’t covered by the exceptions to the act’s written consent requirement. In many cases, those working with Musk have been designated as employees of the agencies they’re auditing, allowing the government to argue that their access to data falls under the “need to know” exception.

Another legal hurdle will be showing that people were adversely affected by the data access or data sharing.

Trahan’s letter seeks input from civil society groups, “concerned Americans,” and “current and recently terminated government technologists” on legislation to amend the act.

“The Privacy Act, passed at the dawn of the computer age, was supposed to help the government use technology while upholding a key civil liberty,” she writes. “But its gaps are increasingly glaring and demand Congress’s attention.”

For instance, the law doesn’t anticipate the rise of AI systems that could leverage people’s data to deny them benefits or federal employment. It also predates modern ideas about what constitutes personally identifiable information and how it can be protected or compromised.

Among the potential changes she’s exploring are:

The push has the backing of some privacy experts and former government officials. But it faces an uphill battle in Congress.

Ann Lewis, former Director of Technology Transformation Services at the U.S. General Services Administration, backs reforming the law, saying in a statement that it “lacks necessary provisions to address modern challenges presented by national-scale data breaches, widespread adoption of AI, and the need for secure cross-agency information sharing.”

To become law, of course, the bill would need the support of Republicans in both the House and Senate, not to mention President Donald Trump. While DOGE’s work has sparked some public backlash, Trump and the party so far have largely stood behind Musk’s work. And the continuing resolution that Congress passed last week might give the administration even greater leeway in its cost-cutting efforts.