DOGE Violation of the Privacy Act, and an IT Lawyer’s Lawsuit: Implications for AI Copyright in the U.S.

“OPM defendants gave DOGE defendants and DOGE’s agents—many of whom are under the age of 25 and are or were until recently employees of Musk’s private companies—‘administrative’ access to OPM computer systems, without undergoing any normal, rigorous national-security vetting,” the complaint alleges. The Privacy Act of 1974, which governs how the government can collect, use, and store personal information, was allegedly violated by DOGE.

The EFF and Mark Lemley, an intellectual property and tech lawyer who recently dropped Meta as a client in its controversial AIcopyright lawsuit because he objected to what they alleged is the company are both represented by prominent tech industry lawyers.

There is a high risk that this information could be used to identify employees who could potentially be terminated, according to Noble. There’s information about the involvement of people with unions.

The team behind this most recent lawsuit plans to push even further. Lemley says that the first phase is to get an injunction to stop the violations. The next phase will include filing a class action lawsuit on behalf of impacted federal workers.

Gregory Barbaccia: Former Vice President of the Office of Inspector General and Chief Information Officer of the Palantir Corporation (Office of Inspectors General)

“Federal agency CIOs have authority over all agency asset management, which includes software used to monitor civil servant laptops and phones,” a former Biden official with firsthand knowledge of a CIO’s capabilities tells WIRED. CIO shops have oversight of all the IT contracts per the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act. They have lots of IT budget and headcount Musk might want to take over. CIOs are more powerful than OIGs in agencies. The Office of Inspectors General.

Late last month, Gregory Barbaccia was hired as the federal chief information officer, a position within OMB, which oversees the performance of all federal agencies and administers the budget. According to his resume, the man has spent most of his career in tech. When he retired from Palantir in 2020, he was the head of intelligence and investigations. Palantir CEO Alex Karp recently referenced the “disruption” of DOGE’s cost-cutting initiatives and said, “whatever is good for America will be good for Americans and very good for Palantir.” The company has been involved in billions of dollars in government contracts. Palantir shares hit an all-time high last week after a better than expected quarterly earnings report. Last week, Palantir announced plans to integrate Musk’s large language model Grok with Palantir’s AI platform.