Elon Musk's DOGE Feeds Sensitive Federal Data into AI, Sparking Privacy and Security Concerns

Lawsuit tries to block DOGE's access to student loan data

The Department of Education (DOE) was sued Friday by a California student association demanding an "immediate stop" to Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) "unlawfully" digging through student loan data to potentially dismantle DOE. "The scale of the intrusion into individuals' privacy is enormous and unprecedented," the lawsuit said. According to the University of California Student Association (UCSA) -- which has over 230,000 undergraduate students as members -- more than 42 million people in the US have federal student loans and face privacy risks if DOGE's access to their information isn't blocked. Additionally, parents and spouses of loan borrowers share private financial information with the DOE that could also be at risk, the lawsuit alleged. The lawsuit cites public reporting from anonymous sources familiar with DOGE's activity that suggests "roughly 20 people affiliated with DOGE" are working within DOE in efforts "shrouded in secrecy." These DOGE employees, sources told The Washington Post, do not disclose their last names and use personal email addresses viewed as less secure than government email addresses. That seemingly violates security protocols, DOE officials have warned. An expert on constitutional law, Blake Emerson, told The Post that DOGE seems to be acting as a "shadow executive branch" operating "outside of the channels the Constitution and the statutes that Congress authorized." However, so far Congress has not intervened, despite the Constitution giving spending power to Congress, The Post noted, not temporary agencies created by the executive branch, like DOGE. Some Democrats sent a letter Wednesday raising alarms about DOGE's work at DOE, describing "serious concerns" that DOGE's work is supporting a "broader plan to dismantle the federal government until it is unable to function and meet the needs of the American people." The Democrats demanded a response detailing who at DOGE has access to DOE databases and to what end, requesting answers by Friday. But it's unclear if DOGE has intentions to respond on that timeline, and Republicans ultimately have control of both chambers of Congress and seem hesitant to intervene, The Post reported. The lawsuit could increase pressure on DOE to increase transparency of DOGE operations. Perhaps most urgently troubling to students, the lawsuit suggested, is reporting suggesting that DOGE's employees are feeding their loan data into artificial intelligence (AI) systems to identify ways to slash the DOE. That effort could expose Americans to cybersecurity risks and perhaps even help Donald Trump follow through on his promise to "kill" DOE, one source told The Washington Post. Students never consented to that, the complaint said, while alleging that the DOE has "acknowledged" that handing "over access to financial aid records to DOGE" is "unlawful." "People who take out federal student loans to afford higher education should not be forced to share their sensitive information with 'DOGE,'" the lawsuit said. "And federal law says they do not have to." Because DOE's actions have allegedly "harmed UCSA's members" -- "by depriving them of the privacy protections guaranteed to them by federal law and, consequently, the ability to decide for themselves whether DOGE should be able to obtain and use their personal data for unknown reasons," including to potentially "shut down" DOE -- they are entitled to a temporary, preliminary, or permanent injunction, the lawsuit said. UCSA also asked the court to order DOGE to return any records that students did not authorize to be accessed by third parties outside the DOE. Students also want DOGE enjoined from any future access to their records without their consent. The student association is represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group, the same legal group helping Americans sue the Treasury Department over DOGE access to federal payment systems. If the lawsuit follows a similar trajectory as the Treasury Department suit, a US district court judge assigned to the DOE case may insist that DOE finally identify all DOGE employees currently accessing education databases like StudentAid.gov. DOGE's alleged AI probe of DOE records Sources told The Washington Post that Musk's DOGE plans to use AI software to "probe" DOE's "programs and spending." DOGE apparently plans to feed personally identifiable information of people who both manage grants and other DOE financial data, as well as people receiving federal funding, into the AI software to "hunt" for spending cuts. Microsoft declined to comment, but allegedly the DOGE employees are "using AI software accessed through Microsoft's cloud computing service Azure to pore over every dollar of money the department disburses, from contracts to grants to work trip expenses," one source told The Post. The lawsuit noted that several DOE employees have tried to block DOGE's access by raising red flags up the command chain, but DOE leadership directly instructed lower-level employees to grant DOGE access, the same source alleged. A big concern is that if education data is funneled into AI systems by Doge, it will cause sensitive data to be stored in a way that makes it more vulnerable to cyberattacks or data breaches. Another issue could be that the AI system is error-prone or potentially hallucinating data driving decisions on major DOE cuts. On Thursday, a DOE deputy assistant secretary for communications, Madi Biedermann, issued a statement insisting that DOGE employees are federal employees who have undergone background checks to be granted requisite security clearances. "There is nothing inappropriate or nefarious going on," Biedermann said. Trump has similarly waved away concerns over DOGE's work at DOE and other departments that officials worry are experiencing a "blitz" of seemingly unlawful power grabs, The Post reported. On Monday, Trump told reporters that "if there's a conflict" with DOGE accessing Americans' data, "then we won't let him get near it." But seemingly until Trump agrees there's a conflict, Musk's work with DOGE must go on, Trump said. "We're trying to shrink government, and he can probably shrink it as well as anybody else, if not better," Trump suggested. While groups representing the interests of millions of Americans are suing, confused over whether they need to urgently protect their private financial data, one DOE staffer told the post that DOGE "is working with almost unbelievable speed." The staffer ominously suggested that it may already be too late to protect Americans from DOGE's seemingly invasive AI probes or defend departments against threatened cuts. "They have a playbook, which is to get access to the data," the staffer told The Post. "And once they're in, it's already over."

Elon Musk's DOGE is feeding sensitive federal data into AI to target cuts

Representatives from Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service have fed sensitive data from across the Education Department into artificial intelligence software to probe the agency's programs and spending, according to two people with knowledge of the DOGE team's actions. The AI probe includes data with personally identifiable information for people who manage grants, as well as sensitive internal financial data, the two people said. They described DOGE activities at the Education Department on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation. The DOGE team is using AI software accessed through Microsoft's cloud computing service Azure to pore through every dollar of money the department disburses, from contracts to grants to work trip expenses, one of the people said. Lower level department staffers were directed by agency leadership to let Musk's teams access the sensitive financial data, the person said. The use of AI inside the Department of Education, which has not previously been reported, shows how Musk's group, which includes former employees from his tech empire, is tapping the favorite tool of Silicon Valley as part of its mission to drastically slash the size and functions of the federal government. At the Department of Education, the DOGE's team aims to radically reduce spending and ultimately shrink the department and its staff, the people said -- helping further the Trump administration's push to get rid of it entirely. The DOGE team plans to replicate this process across many departments and agencies, accessing the back-end software at different parts of the government and then using AI technology to extract and sift through information about spending on employees and programs, including DEI initiatives, according to another person familiar with the DOGE process, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to describe it. Like other tech leaders, Musk has frequently championed AI as a tool capable of rapidly making sense of data and situations that can confuse humans. However, because of the technology's risks, many private-sector companies and U.S. government departments have banned workers from using it on secure materials. Feeding sensitive data into AI software puts it into the possession of a system's operator, increasing the chances it will be leaked or swept up in cyberattacks. AI can also make errors, for example hallucinating incorrect information when summarizing data. Microsoft Azure can be used to access AI tools made by many different companies, and it is unclear which the DOGE workers used. Representatives from DOGE and Microsoft declined to comment. A spokesperson for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the Education Department, wrote in a statement Thursday that the DOGE representatives are federal employees who possess the requisite security clearances and background checks. Staffers "are focused on making the Department more cost-efficient, effective, and accountable to the taxpayers," Biedermann said. "There is nothing inappropriate or nefarious going on." DOGE's use of AI inside the Education Department is a significant departure from the Biden administration's policy on the technology, which encouraged federal agencies to use the technology only after developing tests and guidelines to ensure that its use didn't compromise privacy and cybersecurity. Musk's group has rapidly taken over government offices tasked with controlling payments, human resources and IT for the federal government. The Technology Transformation Services section of the General Services Administration, a group established during the Obama administration to make government platforms more accessible and intuitive, has become a key tool of the DOGE campaign. In a Monday meeting, Thomas Shedd, a former Tesla employee who was named head of the TTS last month, told workers there that the group would be a "centralized place" to collect government contracts so they could be analyzed with AI, according to a recording obtained by The Washington Post. Alondra Nelson, who worked on AI policy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Biden administration, said in an interview that most Americans are skeptical of AI and don't want it being used in government, especially if it's unclear how it's being deployed. "Do we want these tools unleashed in government and society without guardrails?" she said. "There's a lot of concern and mistrust about the use of AI in American society." The DOGE team's AI-fueled campaign to winnow down the Education Department has already identified dozens of contracts as targets for cuts, two of the people familiar with the group's work said. They have indicated their intention is to eliminate every contract that is not essential to operations or required by law, according to one of the people. "That's the way you kill an agency, is you remove all [of] their ability to perform their role," the person said. And the DOGE team has already used its access to the Education Department's data to enact significant changes. By the end of January, DOGE members had gained entrée to data on federal student aid, including the personal information for millions who receive student loans from the government -- and to information on department personnel and trainings, according to three people with knowledge of the team's access. Working swiftly last week, one of the people said, the Musk team used information on past trainings to place roughly 100 people on paid administrative leave in compliance with Trump's executive order forbidding federal diversity, equity or inclusion efforts. The vast majority of people placed on leave had signed up for a single diversity training, The Post previously reported, some of them because it helped fulfill a job requirement. The vast majority of the people are still on leave as of Thursday, according to Sheria Smith, president of the union which represents Education Department employees -- and most of them are female or non-White, she said. A staffer inside the Education Department said the DOGE team is working with almost unbelievable speed, not just at his agency but across the government. On Wednesday alone, DOGE representatives gained access to sensitive health payments at the Department of Health and Human Services and began seeking data from the Labor Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The Post reported. "They have a playbook, which is to get access to the data," the staffer said. "And once they're in, it's already over." Aaron Schaffer, Razzan Nakhlawi and Laura Meckler contributed to this report

Elon Musk's DOGE is feeding sensitive federal data into AI to target cuts

Representatives from Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service have fed sensitive data from across the Education Department into artificial intelligence software to probe the agency's programs and spending, according to two people with knowledge of the DOGE team's actions. The AI probe includes data with personally identifiable information for people who manage grants, as well as sensitive internal financial data, the two people said. They described DOGE activities at the Education Department on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation. The DOGE team is using AI software accessed through Microsoft's cloud computing service Azure to pore over every dollar of money the department disburses, from contracts to grants to work trip expenses, one of the people said. Lower-level department staffers were directed by agency leadership to let Musk's teams access the sensitive financial data, the person said. The use of AI inside the Education Department, which has not previously been reported, shows how Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, which includes former employees from his tech empire, is tapping the favorite tool of Silicon Valley as part of its mission to drastically slash the size and functions of the federal government. At the Education Department, DOGE's team aims to radically reduce spending and ultimately shrink the department and its staff, the people said -- helping further the Trump administration's push to get rid of it entirely. The DOGE team plans to replicate this process across many departments and agencies, accessing the back-end software at different parts of the government and then using AI technology to extract and sift through information about spending on employees and programs, including diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, according to another person familiar with the DOGE process, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to describe it. Like other tech leaders, Musk has frequently championed AI as a tool capable of rapidly making sense of data and situations that can confuse humans. However, because of the technology's risks, many private-sector companies and U.S. government departments have banned workers from using it on secure materials. Feeding sensitive data into AI software puts it into the possession of a system's operator, increasing the chances it will be leaked or swept up in cyberattacks. AI can also make errors, for example hallucinating incorrect information when summarizing data. Microsoft Azure can be used to access AI tools made by many different companies, and it is unclear which the DOGE workers used. Representatives from DOGE and Microsoft declined to comment. A spokesperson for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the Education Department, wrote in a statement Thursday that the DOGE representatives are federal employees who possess the requisite security clearances and background checks. Staffers "are focused on making the Department more cost-efficient, effective, and accountable to the taxpayers," Biedermann said. "There is nothing inappropriate or nefarious going on." DOGE's use of AI inside the Education Department is a significant departure from the Biden administration's policy on the technology, which encouraged federal agencies to use AI only after developing tests and guidelines to ensure that its use didn't compromise privacy and cybersecurity. Musk's group has rapidly taken over government offices tasked with controlling payments, human resources and IT for the federal government. The Technology Transformation Services section of the General Services Administration, a group established during the Obama administration to make government platforms more accessible and intuitive, has become a key tool of the DOGE campaign. In a Monday meeting, Thomas Shedd, a former Tesla employee who was named head of the TTS last month, told workers there that the group would be a "centralized place" to collect government contracts so they could be analyzed with AI, according to a recording obtained by The Washington Post. Alondra Nelson, who worked on AI policy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Biden administration, said in an interview that most Americans are skeptical of AI and don't want it being used in government, especially if it's unclear how it's being deployed. "Do we want these tools unleashed in government and society without guardrails?" she said. "There's a lot of concern and mistrust about the use of AI in American society." The DOGE team's AI-fueled campaign to winnow the Education Department has already identified dozens of contracts as targets for cuts, two of the people familiar with the group's work said. They have indicated their intention is to eliminate every contract that is not essential to operations or required by law, according to one of the people. "That's the way you kill an agency, is you remove all [of] their ability to perform their role," the person said. And the DOGE team has already used its access to the Education Department's data to enact significant changes. By the end of January, DOGE members had gained entrée to data on federal student aid, including the personal information for millions who receive student loans from the government -- and to information on department personnel and trainings, according to three people with knowledge of the team's access. Working swiftly last week, one of the people said, the Musk team used information on past trainings to place roughly 100 people on paid administrative leave in compliance with Trump's executive order forbidding federal DEI efforts. The vast majority of people placed on leave had signed up for a single diversity training, The Post previously reported, some of them because it helped fulfill a job requirement. The vast majority of the people are still on leave as of Thursday, according to Sheria Smith, president of the union which represents Education Department employees -- and most of them are female or non-White, she said. A staffer inside the Education Department said the DOGE team is working with almost unbelievable speed, not just at his agency but across the government. On Wednesday alone, DOGE representatives gained access to sensitive health payments at the Department of Health and Human Services and began seeking data from the Labor Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The Post reported. "They have a playbook, which is to get access to the data," the staffer said. "And once they're in, it's already over." -- Aaron Schaffer, Razzan Nakhlawi and Laura Meckler contributed to this report.

Elon Musk's DOGE Is Running Highly Sensitive Government Data Through AI: Report

Trump has unleashed a mob of tech-arsonists on the entire federal government. Elon Musk's team of Stasi programmers at DOGE are feeding highly sensitive data from the Department of Education through artificial intelligence tools, according to an extremely predictable, yet still shocking, report from the Washington Post. The plan, according to the Post, is for DOGE to do the same thing at every federal agency. The DOGE goons are reportedly using Microsoft’s cloud computing service Azure to sift through the data at the Department of Education, which includes personally identifiable information for those who manage grants at the agency, as well as "sensitive internal financial data." The Post cites two unnamed sources who aren't identified for "fear of retaliation." The data is being fed to AI in an effort to get a complete picture of the agency, but AI is extremely unreliable and often just makes things up. AI is a tool that can sound very confident, essentially pulling off a magic trick by making humans think it knows what it's talking about. But that confidence has convinced people it can be relied upon to make decisions. Reliability aside, putting sensitive information through AI tools is also a nightmare from a security standpoint. Many government agencies have rules prohibiting the use of AI for precisely that reason. And if Musk's cronies are just dumping everything into AI, who knows how many vulnerabilities there may be for anyone from adversarial foreign governments to just random hackers who may want access to financial records. The CIA was reportedly forced by the White House to send an unclassified email with the names of new staff hired in the past two years, according to the New York Times, just the latest example of the Trump regime playing fast and loose with security. If these guys don't care about protecting the identity of the country's spies, they clearly care even less about the data housed at the Department of Education. DOGE is reportedly pumping Department of Education information through AI that includes "every dollar of money the department disburses, from contracts to grants to work trip expenses," according to the Post. The stated goal is to "radically reduce spending" at the Department of Education, but President Donald Trump has promised to abolish the agency altogether. Congress has the sole authority to create and abolish federal agencies, but Trump clearly doesn't care. The president hasn't even been on the job for a full three weeks yet and has already fired over a dozen inspectors general in a blatantly illegal effort to install loyalists as government watchdogs, and said he's going to get rid of USAID, among a host of other acts. DOGE is currently rampaging through federal agencies, and the Department of Education is highly vulnerable right now as a target for Trump's goons. The group of young miscreants has already accessed highly sensitive data about federal student aid, according to the Post, "including the personal information for millions who receive student loans from the government." And people within the Department of Education are already seeing the consequences of this power grab. About 100 staff have been placed on leave, apparently for their involvement in DEI initiatives. Trump issued an executive order forbidding the discussion of DEI, and federal agencies have been forced to scrub their website and research reports of forbidden words like "transgender" and "LGBT" at places like the CDC and NSF. Most of the staff put on leave at the Department of Education are women and not white, according to the Post. Some roadblocks have been put in place to hinder DOGE in recent days, including lawsuits to slow them down, but they're working at, "almost unbelievable speed," according to an insider who spoke with the Post. And even some court orders clearly aren't going to stop a determined team of engineers working for the most wealthy man in the world. For example, NBC News reported late Wednesday that the Trump administration had "agreed to restrict DOGE access to Treasury Department payment systems." But you had to read further down into the story to get the full picture that these "restrictions" didn't mean much: The order would allow exceptions for two special government employees at the Treasury â€" Tom Krause and Marko Elez â€" saying they are permitted access "as needed" to perform their duties, "provided that such access to payment records will be 'read only.'" Those two guys are the ones running roughshod over the agencies right now, and it's not clear who determines when access is "needed" to "perform their duties." As it stands now, they clearly believe their duties include taking a chainsaw to the federal government, based on the way their boss talks about it. Neither the Department of Education nor Elon Musk's representatives immediately responded to questions emailed Thursday. Gizmodo will update this post if we hear back. In a statement sent to Gizmodo, Madi Biedermann, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications at the DOE said:

Report: Elon Musk-Led DOGE Feeding Sensitive Data Into AI Amid Cost-Cutting Efforts | PYMNTS.com

Representatives of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have reportedly begun feeding sensitive information from government departments and agencies into artificial intelligence (AI) software to search for opportunities for spending cuts. DOGE started this process at the Department of Education and plans to do the same thing at other departments and agencies, the Washington Post reported Thursday (Feb. 6), citing unnamed sources. While DOGE is searching for potential spending cuts, the data its representatives are feeding into the AI software includes sensitive internal financial data and personally identifiable information for people who manage grants, according to the report. Putting the data into AI software increases the risk of cyberattacks and of errors generating by AI systems that can hallucinate, the report said. Agency leadership authorized the DOGE representatives' access to the data, per the report. The Education Department did not immediately reply to PYMNTS' request for comment. In a statement provided to Seeking Alpha, Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary, Office of Communications and Outreach, said: "The DOGE employees are federal employees. They have been sworn in, have the necessary background checks and clearances, and are focused on making the Department more cost-efficient, effective, and accountable to the taxpayers. There is nothing inappropriate or nefarious going on." It was reported Thursday that a judge limited DOGE's access to the Treasury Department's payment system after a group of unions accused the Treasury of illegally sharing member information with DOGE. The order blocks the Treasury from offering access "to any payment record or payment system of records maintained by or within the Bureau of the Fiscal Service," with some exceptions, as the judge weighs the unions' request for a broader temporary restraining order. It allows "read only" access to two "special government employees" Treasury recently brought in who have ties to DOGE. Both have offices at Treasury, department email addresses and clearance to access some secure but unclassified Treasury information. On Wednesday (Feb. 5), it was reported that DOGE gained access to Medicare's payment system and that DOGE representatives were looking at the systems and the spending flowing through it to root out fraud and waste.

Elon Musk's Henchmen Feeding Sensitive Government Data Into AI

While making a show of feeding a government agency "into the wood chipper," billionaire Elon Musk's lackeys have secretly been feeding another's sensitive data into AI software. As The Washington Post reports, representatives at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency -- some of whom are literal teenagers -- have used the technology to investigate the Education Department's programs and spending, as part of Musk's promise to cut down federal expenditures. The exact nature of the tool is unclear, but the AI software is accessed through Microsoft's Azure cloud computing service, according to the report. Among the data being probed by the AI includes identifying information on people who manage grants, along with sensitive internal financial data. Even so, the education department's new deputy assistant secretary for communications insists that everything's being done above board. Staffers "are focused on making the Department more cost-efficient, effective, and accountable to the taxpayers," Madi Biedermann wrote in a Thursday statement, per WaPo. "There is nothing inappropriate or nefarious going on." Beyond questions about whether Musk, a conflict of interest incarnate, and his extremely young DOGE employees should be accessing sensitive data and vital organs of government functioning, the use of AI in this fashion signals an alarming disregard for safety. Under the previous Biden administration's AI protocols, federal agencies were instructed not to use AI until after extensive safety testing and guidelines were established, WaPo notes. Elsewhere, large organizations including banks and companies like Amazon banned employees from using large language models over fears of causing leaks. Many leading AI models, especially chatbots, can ingest the data they're given to improve their responses. A bevy of research has also highlighted the numerous security vulnerabilities present in leading AI models, which are sitting ducks for cyberattacks. "Do we want these tools unleashed in government and society without guardrails?" Alondra Nelson, who worked on AI policy under the Biden administration, told WaPo. "There's a lot of concern and mistrust about the use of AI in American society." And this could just be the beginning. According to WaPo sources and other recent reports, Musk and DOGE plan to use AI to axe programs across the government, including DEI initiatives. An anonymous education department employee said that DOGE staffers are work at dizzying speeds as they arrogate as much information as possible, already accessing personal data on millions of people who receive federal student loans, per the report. "They have a playbook, which is to get access to the data," the staffer told WaPo. "And once they're in, it's already over."