On February 14, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia denied a request to restrain the DOL, the HHS, and the CFPB from providing DOGE personnel access to the agencies’ records systems containing personal information. The plaintiffs were a labor union, think tank and two nonprofits arguing that permitting DOGE personnel with access to individuals’ personal information held by the DOL, the HHS, and the CFPB violated the Privacy Act of 1974. This act prohibits an agency from disclosing individuals’ personal information outside the agency without prior written consent. The court held DOGE’s access to the personal information was permitted by an exception to the Privacy Act that permits agencies “to disclose records ‘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.’” It explained DOGE personnel needed the agencies’ records to carry out its mission of “modernizing [f]ederal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”

The court rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that DOGE employees were not “employees of the agency” at which they are detailed because, under the Economy Act of 1932, only agencies can detail workers to other agencies and DOGE is not an agency; further, DOGE was neither created by statute nor accountable to an entity that is. In contrast, DOGE argued that it fit under the Economy Act’s broad definition of “agency,” as an “instrumentality” (but, the court noted, “sh[ied] away from other, similar statutory definitions of agencies” which the court surmised “appears to come from a desire to escape the obligations that accompany agencyhood…”).

Based on the record before it, the court concluded the plaintiffs had not shown a substantial likelihood that DOGE was not an agency. Because the plaintiffs were therefore unlikely to succeed on the merits of their Privacy Act claim, the court denied their TRO request.