A divided US Supreme Court on Friday granted President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to the social security data of millions of Americans.
The decision came after the Trump administration appealed to the top court to lift an April order by a district judge restricting DOGE access to Social Security Administration (SSA) records.
“Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, bank-account numbers, medical records – all of that, and more, is in the mix,” Jackson said.
In her April ruling, District Judge Ellen Hollander banned DOGE staff from accessing data containing information that could personally identify Americans such as their social security numbers, medical history or bank records.
Social security numbers are a key identifier for people in the United States, used to report earnings, establish eligibility for welfare and retirement benefits and other purposes.
Millions of Americans’ social security information was made available to President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Friday by a divided US Supreme Court.
The ruling followed the Trump administration’s appeal to the highest court to overturn a district judge’s April order limiting DOGE’s access to Social Security Administration (SSA) data.
“SSA may proceed to afford members of the SSA DOGE Team access to the agency records in question so that those members can carry out their duties,” the top court stated in a succinct, unsigned resolution.
In his dissenting opinion, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson stated that the action presents “severe privacy risks for millions of Americans” among the Supreme Court’s three liberal justices.
According to Jackson, “the mix includes medical records, bank account numbers, addresses, birth dates, Social Security numbers, and more.”.
She stated, “The Government wants to give DOGE unrestricted access to this personal, non-anonymized information right now – before the courts have time to assess whether DOGE’s access is lawful.”.
District Judge Ellen Hollander’s decision from April prohibited DOGE employees from accessing data that contained personal identifying information about Americans, such as their bank records, medical histories, or social security numbers.
People in the United States are uniquely identified by their social security numbers, which are used for a variety of purposes, including reporting income and determining eligibility for welfare and retirement benefits.
Only DOGE employees who have successfully finished background checks and received training on federal laws, regulations, and privacy policies are eligible to receive redacted or anonymized records, according to Hollander.
A group of unions filed the case before Hollander, claiming that the SSA had allowed unauthorized DOGE employees access to its data systems “with disregard for the privacy” of millions of Americans.
Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla, led DOGE at the time. Musk has since had a highly public disagreement with the president, and Trump has charged the agency with cutting billions of dollars in government spending.
Since he returned to the White House, Trump has been at odds with the judiciary, expressing his ire at court decisions at different levels that have halted his executive orders on a number of issues.
(AFP with FRANCE 24).
