Oregonians Challenge Elon Musk’s DOGE and Data Brokers for Misusing Personal Information in Privacy Law Uproar
The Privacy Unit attached to the Oregon Department of Justice (ODOJ) reported yesterday that complaints over personal data use by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and social media/data brokers under the Oregon Consumer Privacy Act spiked in the first three months of the year.
Oregonians Report DOGE & Data Brokers Use of Personal Information
By the end of March, the ODOJ received over 250 complaints about DOGE’s use of personal data, as Oregonians worry about how government entities are handling their personal information.
In addition to the DOGE complaints, the Privacy Unit received 47 complaints relating to the Oregon Consumer Privacy Act (OCPA). The Act has rules for businesses on collecting customer information and gives consumers more power over their data.
After the Oregon AG, Dan Rayfield, led community hearings on federal firings and DOGE funding freezes, the AG filed a lawsuit related to DOGE’s use of personal data, and a judge blocked DOGE from accessing Treasury Department information.
ODOJ’s 2025 Quarter 1 Enforcement Report, released yesterday, addresses outreach and enforcement efforts from January 1 to March 31, 2025, and identifies broad privacy trends in Oregon.
Oregon has also joined a Consortium of Privacy Regulators, a bipartisan group of state Attorneys General and the California Privacy Protection Agency, to collaborate on the implementation and enforcement of state privacy laws.
The group will focus on facilitating discussions of privacy law developments and shared priorities, with an emphasis on consumer protection across jurisdictions.
Rayfield confirmed his office will continue to fight for privacy and ensure DOGE doesn’t sidestep the law. The DOJ will continue to issue these reports quarterly, with a longer report published every six months.
He said, “The surge in complaints about DOGE underscores a growing public concern about what Elon Musk and President Trump are doing with the private information of millions of Americans.”
The ODOJ Privacy Unit has an online toolkit to help Oregon families protect their data, including a “how to” guide for making privacy rights requests.