DOGE Access to Student Loan Borrowers’ Personal Data Probed by Lawmakers
By Shauneen Miranda for States Newsroom
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats are fed up with the Education Department’s response to their inquiry over reports that Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service “gained access to millions of student loan borrowers’ personal data.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts led 14 other senators on Wednesday in urging Acting Education Secretary Denise Carter to offer up more information by March 5 on access to the data by DOGE employees and affiliates.
The letter came after a federal judge earlier this week temporarily blocked the Education Department and Office of Personnel Management from providing “personally identifiable information” to DOGE.
A group of labor unions, membership organizations and several U.S. military veterans filed the lawsuit earlier in February over concerns that the two entities, plus the Treasury Department, gave DOGE access to systems with sensitive and private data, in violation of the Privacy Act.
The Department of Government Efficiency — which is not an actual department — marks a major attempt from President Donald Trump and his administration to try to drastically reduce federal government spending.
The Initial Letter
Warren and a handful of Democratic colleagues initially wrote to Carter on February 7 over news reports that DOGE had “infiltrated” the Education Department and DOGE staffers got “access to federal student loan data.”
They requested that Carter write back and answer whether Musk and his team had access to these sensitive data systems and what safeguards were in place to ensure there’s no misuse of federal student loan data.
In a one-page response, the department wrote that it “has robust protections in place to ensure data are secure, and we have not engaged in any activities that would expose data through unauthorized or unlawful means.”
“Protecting sensitive student loan data and borrower information is of the utmost importance to the Department,” the letter noted.
‘Inadequate’ Response
But the senators said Wednesday that the Education Department’s response was “woefully inadequate, may have contained misleading information, and raised new concerns about the nature and extent of DOGE’s access to the (Education) Department’s internal systems.”
The senators added that the Education Department “failed to answer basic questions about DOGE’s access to student loan borrowers’ personal data.”
The Democrats said the Education Department’s “evasive response,” plus the federal judge’s temporary block on the department sharing data with DOGE, “heightens our concerns about whether (the Education Department) may have violated the law or the federal government’s procedures in handling this data.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York also signed the Wednesday letter, along with California’s Alex Padilla; Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal; Hawaii’s Mazie Hirono; Illinois’ Dick Durbin; Maryland’s Angela Alsobrooks and Chris Van Hollen; Massachusetts’ Ed Markey; Minnesota’s Tina Smith; New Jersey’s Cory Booker; New Mexico’s Ben Ray Luján; Oregon’s Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley; and Vermont’s Peter Welch.
Last updated 1:18 p.m., February 27, 2025