The nonprofit University of California Student Association (UCSA) filed a complaint in Federal district court against the Department of Education on Feb. 7 seeking to halt the agency’s provision of “sensitive personal and financial information” to the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The complaint asks the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia to stop the Education Department from providing DOGE with personal information, claiming that it violates Federal law.
In the complaint, UCSA claims that the Education Department has allowed DOGE to obtain records with personal, identifiable information including social security numbers, demographic information, and income details from individuals receiving aid from Federal student aid programs.
“The scale of the intrusion into individual’s privacy is enormous,” the complaint reads. “The personal data of more than 42 million people lives in these systems.”
“These are people who trusted [the Education Department] with their sensitive personal information when they filled out the [Free Application for Federal Student Aid] and applied for Federal student loans and grants, in reliance on the agency’s rules and other representations,” the complaint adds.
UCSA said allowing DOGE to access that data violates the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Internal Revenue Code.
The Privacy Act of 1974 requires Federal agencies to give a System of Records Notice (SORN) that outlines how an agency uses its records, according to the complaint. Additionally, agencies are required to provide 30-days’ notice so the public can submit data, views, or arguments if an agency changes how it uses the data it collects.
USCA said the Education Department violated this requirement when it allowed DOGE to gain access to its records outside of the framework provided through the Privacy Act.
“[Education Department] failed to consider their legal obligations under Federal law, the harm that their actions would cause to the objectives that those statutes sought to achieve, or the harm caused to [USCA’s] members or the general public,” the complaint reads.
The complaint also says that the Education Department violated the Internal Revenue Code by providing DOGE with access to Federal tax information including returns or return information which it maintains for Federal aid programs.
The complaint, filed in the District of Columbia’s Federal court, asks the court to declare that the Education Department acted illegally by allowing DOGE to access personal data, to enjoin the agency from allowing DOGE to access future data, ensure future access to data will only occur in accordance with the Privacy Act, and recover any personal information obtained by unauthorized actors.
“This Court’s exercise of equitable authority is the only adequate avenue available to [USCA’s] members to protect the data that they, and millions of others, have provided to the Federal government,” the complaint reads.
In a scheduling hearing on Monday, Judge Randolph D. Moss set Feb. 12 at 3:30 p.m. to hear the case. Moss considered a temporary restraining order on DOGE’s access to social security information but will decide on that as a separate issue at 10 a.m. on Feb. 11.
