The move has sparked concerns that the order could further embolden billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, even as the group is already facing a number of lawsuits over its access to sensitive government data.
“The Trump administration is escalating its effort to consolidate federal data across agencies, opening the floodgates for unplanned uses of information that go far beyond what people expected when they entrusted their data to the government,” said Elizabeth Laird, director of equity and civic technology at the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology.
The new executive order states that the heads of agencies should ensure that designated federal officials have “full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, data, software systems, and information technology systems.” It gives agency heads 30 days to rescind or modify agency guidance deemed a hindrance to data-sharing for the sake of identifying and eliminating fraud, waste and abuse.
“It is serving to legitimize what DOGE has already done and to ensure that agencies are following suit,” said one former government official who’s worked on federal technology and information-sharing policies in previous administrations.
Just yesterday, a federal judge said that the Social Security Administration likely flouted privacy laws in giving DOGE aides access to SSA data about Americans as it searched for fraud “based on little more than suspicion.”
Within the agency, there’s a fear among staff that the order could be used to give DOGE access to sensitive data and systems, even when a court recently ordered that sharing to stop, one SSA employee told Nextgov ..
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