United States district judge Deborah Boardman said that the agencies likely violated the 1974 Privacy Act by disclosing people’s personal data without their consent, according to court filings on Monday ( 24^th February).

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit were unions, federal employee membership organisations, student aid recipients and veterans, who argued that the agencies wrongly granted access to records that contain their personally identifiable information to Doge personnel.

The information included bank account numbers, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, addresses, disability status, employment records and information on income.

Boardman ruled that Doge affiliates do not have a ‘need to know’ the information to perform their duties. "Preventing the unauthorised disclosure of the plaintiffs’ personal information is in the public interest," said the ruling from Boardman.

US president Donald Trump signed an executive order on 20^th January to establish Doge ‘to implement the president’s Doge Agenda, by modernising federal technology and software to maximise governmental efficiency and productivity’.

The executive order ordered agency heads to ‘take all necessary steps, in coordination with the USDS [United States Doge Service] Administrator and to the maximum extent consistent with law, to ensure USDS has full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems’.