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A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration broke the law when it gave Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, access to sensitive personal information held by the government.Judge Denise Cote, a Clinton appointee on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, issued the decision on Tuesday. She found it was undisputed that the Office of Personnel Management, or OPM, violated the Privacy Act by letting DOGE agents into that data.The government's own response drew pointed criticism from the bench. Cote wrote: "The defendants barely defend its legality, relying instead on what has happened since to argue that the case is moot and that prospective relief is unnecessary."The ruling shows that DOGE, a novel agency President Donald Trump unleashed on the federal government and which is now defunct, operated unlawfully soon after its inception. Plaintiffs led by the American Federation of Government Employees sued in February 2025. Cote blocked DOGE's access in a June 2025 order, and the plaintiffs have won on their Administrative Procedure Act claims because of the privacy law violations.The judge placed the blame on "particular individuals" who failed to follow the Privacy Act and OPM's safeguards. She also warned about the limits of any rulebook: "The effectiveness of any law and such government safeguards ultimately depends on the fidelity of those entrusted to observe and enforce them, and even the most rigorous procedures cannot secure compliance by those willing to disregard them,"The government argued that changed circumstances make the case moot. The judge noted that DOGE has been dissolved, only one of its agents remains at OPM, and no DOGE agent has accessed sensitive OPM data since September 2025. Cote said those changes do not moot the case, but they raise significant questions about what relief, if any, is still needed.