DOGE Data Access Lawsuit By Fed Workers Allowed to Move Forward

A group of federal employees can move forward with claims the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency violated their privacy rights by accessing their personal information, after a judge declined to dismissed their case.

The employees adequately alleged a concrete injury under the federal Privacy Act, wrote Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the US District Court for the District of Columbia in the Wednesday ruling, allowing the case to advance into discovery.

The case is similar to a wave of litigation brought against DOGE’s handling of widespread government data access, both for private citizens and government employees. The Wednesday decision mirrors a December ruling allowing a similar case to move forward in federal court in New York.

In the D.C. case, five federal employees sued the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Treasury for allowing DOGE to access their personal data, alleging it exposed them to risks of fraud and forced them to purchase identity theft protection services.

“The reasonableness of that decision has only been confirmed by the government’s recent admission that DOGE staffers have in fact mishandled agency data in precisely the ways Plaintiffs feared,” Cooper wrote in denying the government’s motion to dismiss.

The case differs in a few ways from 2025 litigation in which the US Supreme Court allowed DOGE to continue accessing Social Security Administration data, the judge wrote.

The high court had found blocking access would prevent DOGE from doing its work of attempting to root out waste and fraud in government spending, but that is no longer a consideration since DOGE’s work has wound down, he said. He also pointed out the current case differs in that it seeks damages, not simply an injunction.

The case is Nemeth-Greenleaf v. US Office of Personnel Management, D.D.C., No. 1:25-cv-00407, 3/4/26.