EFF demands Elon Musk and Doge to block their access to federal employee data

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, together with multiple federal unions of employees, have filed a lawsuit Against Elon Musk and his team of the Government Efficiency Department (Doge) to block their access to confidential information and identification about millions of Americans. Specifically, the plaintiffs seek to prevent them from accessing the data stored by the Personnel Management Office (OPM) and deleting any information that have been collected so far. The demand also appoints OPM and the interim director Charles Ezell as defendants.

In early February, Reuters He informed that Musk attendees blocked OPM employees from the agency’s systems. "We have no visibility of what they are doing with the computer and data systems," One of its sources said at that time. The OPM has the largest collection of employee data in the US. UU. And it contains confidential information about past and current federal employees, as well as in employment applicants for federal positions that they requested through Usajobs.gov. As EFF points out, the agency’s records contain names of federal employees, birth dates, housing addresses, social security numbers, work experience, trade union activities, salaries, performance reviews, degradations, life insurance, death benefits and death benefits classified information NDAS. The list even includes the initial names and surnames of CIA employees in highly sensitive roles.

In his announcement, the EFF explained that the mismanagement of information in OPM systems could lead to "significant and varied abuses," and that Dux’s "Access without control" By itself, federal employees at risk of privacy violations and even political pressure and blackmail. The Foundation also emphasized the risk that federal employees face Doge’s access to information without restrictions and the property of Musk of X. cited the old Musk tweets by appointing the specific government characters whose works would reduce even before they had access to the OPM database.

OPM violated the 1974 Privacy Law when he gave Doge "Access without restrictions and wholesale" To its systems, said EFF. According to the Privacy Law, the written consent of the person whose data is shared if the government records will be disclosed is required. Meanwhile, the plaintiffs accuse Musk and their agents to exceed "The scope of your legal authority" When controlling OPM systems, because it has resulted in the illegal dissemination of their content. "Our case is quite simple: OPM data is extraordinarily sensitive, OPM was given to doge, and this violates the Privacy Law," The EFF wrote. "We are asking the court to block any other data exchange and that demands that you immediately destroy each and every one of the copies of the discharged material." Last week, a federal judge blocked Musk and Doge from Access the Treasury Department information and ordered them to destroy any data that have already been collected.

This article originally appeared in Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/eff-suest ? SRC = RSS
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