Are you afraid Elon Musk will learn if you’re married, steal your social security number, or laugh at your pitiful bank account? A federal judge says he’s not allowed to - at least for now.
The Washington Post recently reported that Musk’s new Department of Government Efficiency -DOGE - had gained access to the records from the National Student Loan Data System. These records include social security numbers, marital status, and income information for over 40 million people.
This is one of several changes DOGE has been making within the Department of Education.
On Friday, the UC Student Association filed a lawsuit alleging that the education department was violating the Privacy Act, which blocks personal statements from being shared by third parties. The federal court in Washington, D.C., has temporarily ordered DOGE not to access student loan data.
But once that restriction lifts, how will student privacy be affected?
Mike Hiestand is the senior legal counsel of the Student Press Law Center. He said there are laws on the books to protect students' records.
“Well, there is a federal law. They’re called the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, that does recognize that student education records are private,” said Hiestand. “You can’t disclose that information unless you have either the consent of a student, if the student is of age, or if the student is a minor, the student’s parents [consent].”
But FERPA was designed to protect students from schools themselves, not the government.
“FERPA was never really set up to stop this sort of thing from happening, from government officials getting this information wholesale,” said Hiestand. “Students can’t just find an attorney and sue the Department of Education for violating FERPA.”
However, the Education Department can take action against a school.
“If the Department of Education finds that a school has a practice of divulging confidential student information, the Department of Education can cut off federal funding to that school,” said Hiestand. “It’s kind of a nuclear option. It’s never been exercised, but that’s always been the threat.”
Over in USC’s Fertitta Hall, senior business administration major Nicole Lainez is concerned about DOGE gaining access to her information.
“I have a loan. I took it out because I had to and knowing that because I had to do something, something without my consent [could happen and] could possibly harm me in the future, is honestly really worrying,” said Lainez.
Lainez thinks students should take the security of their information much more seriously. She believes many students likely don’t know that their information could have been, or may soon be, accessible to DOGE.
“I feel like we should take cybersecurity a lot more serious,” said Lainez. “The same way that we would care for our bank accounts, I think is the same way that we should be caring where our information is going.”
Jared Tam, a sophomore majoring in industrial engineering, thinks it’s important for people to know where their information is going and how it’s being used.
“I myself don’t take out loans, but I know all my roommates do that. So if their information were to get leaked out...that would really suck for them,” said Tam.
Some lawmakers also see potential drawbacks to giving DOGE access to student loan information.
16 senators, including California’s Alex Padilla, have addressed a letter to Education Secretary Denise Carter.
The letter reads: “This deeply troubling report raises questions about potential exposures of Americans' private data, the abuse of this data by the Trump Administration, and whether officials who have access to the data may have violated the law, or the federal government’s procedures for handling sensitive information.”