Appeals Court Declines to Lift Restrictions on DOGE’s Access to Social Security Information

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 9-6 to keep a previous ruling from a federal judge.

A Social Security Administration (SSA) office in Washington on March 26, 2025. Saul Loeb/AFP

A federal appeals court on April 30 said it would not lift the restrictions on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing unredacted Social Security data of millions of Americans.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ full panel of judges voted 9-6 to keep U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander’s previous preliminary injunction in place while DOGE proceeds with its appeal.

On April 17, Hollander’s order barred the Social Security Administration (SSA) from giving DOGE employees and Elon Musk, who Trump tapped to lead the advisory commission, access to any records containing personally identifiable information for Americans in the program, including addresses.

Hollander wrote that DOGE’s objective, tackling waste and fraud in the federal government, “is laudable, and one that the American public presumably applauds and supports,” but said the case is about how the advisory commission accomplishes that task.

“For some 90 years, SSA has been guided by the foundational principle of an expectation of privacy with respect to its records. This case exposes a wide fissure in the foundation,” she wrote.

Hollander concluded that the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the other enjoining plaintiffs are likely to prevail in their claims that the SSA giving DOGE access to unredacted data was not only arbitrary and capricious, but also in violation of federal laws.

“And, plaintiffs have demonstrated that their members will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of a preliminary injunction, the equities tip in their favor, and the preliminary injunction serves the public interest,” she wrote.

The order did not block DOGE from accessing redacted Social Security data stripped of personally identifiable information, as long as the staffers who view it undergo training and background checks.

Additionally, DOGE must remove any unredacted or non-anonymized data it has already obtained and cannot make changes to SSA computer code, Hollander ordered.

Attorneys for DOGE had argued that working to anonymize data would be too burdensome and could obstruct the Trump administration’s efforts to root out fraud in the agency.

On April 30, Appellate Judge Robert B. King—writing for the majority—said that DOGE wants “immediate and unfettered access to all” Social Security records, including “the highly sensitive personal information of essentially everyone in our Country,” such as mental health and medical records for disability recipients, and bank information.

“All this highly sensitive information has long been handed over to SSA by the American people with every reason to believe that the information would be fiercely protected,” King wrote.

Writing for those who voted against the majority ruling, Appellate Judge Julius Richardson said a smaller three-judge group should have handled the case, instead of the 4th Circuit’s full panel of judges. Additionally, he said the plaintiffs have failed to prove that DOGE has actually looked at their unredacted personal information, but are rather upset by the possibility of “abstract harm.”

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.