DOGE has been blocked by a federal district court temporarily from pulling sensitive personal information from the U.S. Department of Education.

The injunction by a federal judge in Maryland on Monday in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Federation of Teachers and other labor unions after finding that the DOE and the Office of Personnel Management had likely violated the Privacy Act by giving the personal information of teachers and other educational staffers to DOGE without their consent. The judge said the unions had met the burden for “the extraordinary relief they seek.”

This lawsuit is one of several filed by plaintiffs who seek to enjoin federal government agencies from disclosing records with their sensitive personal information to government personnel affiliated with DOGE, according to the memorandum from the presiding judge, Deborah L. Boardman.

“The plaintiffs have made a clear showing that they are likely to suffer irreparable harm without injunctive relief. DOGE affiliates have been granted access to systems of record that contain some of the plaintiffs’ most sensitive data — Social Security numbers, dates of birth, home addresses, income and assets, citizenship status, and disability status — and their access to this trove of personal information is ongoing,” she said. 

“There is no reason to believe their access to this information will end anytime soon because the government believes their access is appropriate.”

The cadre of unions, who were joined as plaintiffs with six other individuals, claimed in their suit that the Federal Government had unlawfully granted records access to DOGE.

“This is a significant decision that puts a firewall between actors whom we believe lack the legitimacy and authority to access Americans’ personal data and are using it inappropriately, without any safeguards,” the AFT president, Randi Weingarten, said in a statement. 

“We brought this case to uphold people’s privacy, because when people give their financial and other personal information to the federal government — namely to secure financial aid for their kids to go to college, or to get a student loan — they expect that data to be protected and used for the reasons it was intended, not appropriated for other means.”

The court also said in its memorandum that DOGE also failed to explain why it would need “comprehensive, sweeping access to the plaintiffs’ records to audit student loan programs for waste, fraud, and abuse or to conduct cost-estimate analyses.”