Compliance March 24, 2025

Federal Judge Blocks DOGE from Obtaining Social Security Data

The restraining order was issued days before a nomination hearing for Frank Bisignano, Trump’s nominee for commissioner of the Social Security Administration, is scheduled.

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A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency Service Temporary Organization from accessing private Social Security data last week.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander granted a temporary restraining order, preventing Social Security Administration workers from allowing DOGE access to any records containing personally identifiable information.

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The current acting commissioner of the SSA, Leland Dudek, and chief information officer Michael Russo are named in the restraining order as defendants.

The U.S. Senate Finance Committee, led by Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, is scheduled to hold a nomination hearing on Tuesday, March 25 at 10a.m. to consider Frank Bisignano to be commissioner of the Social Security Administration. The hearing comes after the SSA’s announcement last week that it is implementing stricter identity-proofing measures and will require Americans to visit a field office or use the internet to sign up for Social Security benefits, as opposed to calling in.

Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Ron Wyden of Oregon wrote to Bisignano this week asking whether he would support privatizing the SSA and if he would be willing to undo recent changes at the agency, if those changes proved harmful to beneficiaries.

Meanwhile, the judge’s restraining order demands that all SSA DOGE team members and DOGE affiliates disgorge and delete all non-anonymized PII data in their possession, or under their control, obtained from SSA records they have had access to since January 20, 2025.

In addition, all SSA DOGE members are prohibited from installing any software on SSA devices, information systems or systems of record and must remove any software they previously installed since January 20. They are not allowed to access, alter or disclose any SSA computer of software code, according to the judge’s order.

The SSA is allowed to provide members of DOGE access to “discrete, particularized and non-anonymized data” in accordance with the Privacy Act.

“The court is aware of several news reports claiming that Acting Social Security Commissioner Dudek believes that virtually all employees of SSA fall within the scope of the order, including his ‘IT Staff’ and his ‘anti-fraud team,’” Hollander wrote in a letter to the lawyers involved in the case. “And, according to the news reports, Mr. Dudek apparently believes he is required to terminate their access to SSA’s IT systems, in order to comply with the order. Such assertions about the scope of the Order are inaccurate.”

Hollander clarified that employees of the SSA who are not involved with the DOGE team are not subject to the order.

Hollander also required the SSA defendants to file a status report documenting all the actions they have taken to comply with the restraining order on or before Monday, March 24.

According to the restraining order, the court may require further status reports which may require members of the SSA and DOGE to provide further detail about their compliance activities.

The restraining order is set to expire 14 days after entry unless the court orders otherwise.

Compliance March 21, 2025

Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program Improvements Take Effect

The Employee Benefits Security Administration’s updated self-correction tool launched this week.

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The Department of Labor’s 2025 updates to the Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program—providing employers and plan administrators with more efficient ways to voluntarily correct compliance issues in retirement, health and other employee benefit plans—went into effect earlier this week.

The 2025 update, which became effective on March 17, adds a self-correction tool that allows employers and plan officials to fix delays in sending participant contributions, such as employee payroll deductions and participant loan repayments to retirement plans.

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The DOL issued a model notice to program applicants on March 18 to confirm their plan has applied to participate.

Following a public comment period in late 2022, EBSA agreed that a more streamlined self-correction feature for delinquent participant contributions, with appropriately designed safeguards, would encourage more voluntary corrections by employers and others in a position to correct a breach.

The VFCP is designed to encourage correction of fiduciary breaches and compliance with the law by allowing plan sponsors to avoid potential DOL civil enforcement actions and civil penalties by voluntarily correcting eligible transactions in a manner that meets the requirements of the program.

Employers and plan officials can use the self-correction component to voluntarily self-correct delinquent participant contributions and loan repayments to retirement plans of any size if lost earnings total $1,000 or less.

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