How To Find Out What DOGE Knows About You

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is going from federal agency to federal agency attempting to collect and centralize vast amounts of personal information on millions of people in the U.S., including social security numbers, medical and banking records and more.

DOGE taking personal data from federal agencies has been challenged in dozens of lawsuits as a violation of the Privacy Act of 1974, which regulates how federal agencies can use, and how they must handle, individually identifiable information.

Experts have cautioned that DOGE’s access to such data heightens the risk of personal information being exposed to hackers and foreign adversaries. And privacy advocates have warned that its effort could result in a sprawling domestic surveillance system in the U.S.

Under the Privacy Act, citizens have the right to request to know what personal information may be held by federal agencies. And since the Trump administration is funding DOGE as if it were a federal agency, people should be able to make Privacy Act requests to it, too.

Congressional Democrats have set up resources to help people do just that. For example, the offices of Reps. Jamie Raskin (Md.) and Maggie Goodlander (N.H.) have made a Privacy Act request form that people can print and fill out and mail to DOGE requesting that it provide an accounting of personal information it currently possesses.

The ACLU also created a letter template that people can use to urge their representatives in Congress to conduct oversight into DOGE’s actions.