A series of lawsuits challenging federal agencies’ sharing of Americans’ personal data with Elon Musk’s federal cost-cutting group all have something in common: a 50-year-old privacy statute with little applicable precedent.
In the last week, groups sued the US Labor, Treasury, and Education departments, as well as the Office of Personnel Management and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, alleging their handing over of individuals’ sensitive data to the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency violates the Privacy Act of 1974.
The Watergate-era law aimed to restore trust in government agencies by restricting how federal bodies can collect, maintain, use, and share ...