Warren Bashes Education Department’s “Woefully Inadequate,” “Misleading” Response to Senate Inquiry on DOGE’s Access to Borrower’s Personal Information

“ED failed to provide information on how it intends to ensure ED data is not compromised or misused… [and] failed to answer any of our questions about what safeguards and procedures are in place to protect this data”
“The Department’s evasive response…heightens our concerns about whether ED may have violated the law or the federal government’s procedures in handling this data.”
Text of Letter (PDF)|Response from ED to Original Letter (PDF)
Washington, D.C. –U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (BHUA), led 14 of her colleagues, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), in writing a letter to Acting Secretary of Education Denise Carter, raising concerns about the Department of Education’s (ED; the Department) response to their inquiry into the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) access to millions of student loan borrowers’ personal data. Earlier this week, a federal court blocked DOGE’s access to sensitive ED databases with borrower information.
The letter was joined by Senators Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.).
“[T]he Department’s response was woefully inadequate, may have contained misleading information, and raised new concerns about the nature and extent of DOGE’s access to the Department’s internal systems,”wrote the senators.
ED’s response to the senators’initial letterfailed to answer basic questions about DOGE’s access to student loan borrowers’ personal data.
ED also shared new information about the extent of DOGE’s access to other sensitive databases, saying that DOGE “is currently supporting a review of Department and Federal Student Aid (FSA) contracts to identify possible efficiencies…To support this work, one employee had read-only access to two of FSA’s internal systems.” But the Department failed to provide full and declarative information about which DOGE or ED employees had access to which datasets, what they were doing with that access, whether any data is being fed through Artificial Intelligence systems, and why one employee’s access to FSA’s internal systems was revoked.
ED also failed to provide information on how it intends to ensure data at the department is not compromised or misused, saying only that “robust protections in place to ensure data are secure,” but not providing specifics.
“The Department’s evasive response, in addition to the recent news that a federal judge has blocked ED from sharing sensitive data with DOGE due to potential violations of federal law, heightens our concerns about whether ED may have violated the law or the federal government’s procedures in handling this data,”concluded the lawmakers.
The 15 senators pressed the Acting Secretary to provide more information about DOGE employees’ or affiliates’ access to ED’s databases, the safeguards in place to protect federal student loan data, the status of DOGE’s work at the department, and more by March 5, 2025.
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