WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency from Social Security systems that hold personal data on millions of Americans, calling their work there a "fishing expedition."

The order also requires the team to delete any personally identifiable data in their possession.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander in Maryland found that the team got broad access to sensitive information at the Social Security Administration to search for fraud with little justification.

"The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion," she wrote.

The order allows DOGE staffers who undergo training and background checks to access to data that's been redacted or stripped of anything personally identifiable.

The ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by labor unions, retirees and the advocacy group Democracy Forward. They argued that DOGE access violates privacy laws and presents serious information security risks. The lawsuit included a declaration from a recently departed Social Security official who saw the DOGE team sweep into the agency said she is deeply worried about sensitive information being exposed.

The Trump administration claims DOGE is targeting waste in the federal government. Musk has been focused on Social Security as an alleged hotbed of fraud, describing it as a "ponzi scheme" and insisting that reducing waste in the program is an important way to cut government spending.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

DOGE detailed a 10-person team of federal employees at the SSA, seven of whom were granted read-only access to agency systems or personally identifiable information, according to court documents.

Attorneys for the government argued the DOGE access doesn't deviate significantly from normal practices inside the agency, where employees are routinely allowed to search its databases. But attorneys for the plaintiffs called the access unprecedented.

Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, called the ruling a "major win for working people and retirees across the country."

Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, said that "the court recognized the real and immediate dangers of DOGE's reckless actions and took action to stop it."

DOGE has gotten at least some access to other government databases, including at the Treasury Department and IRS.

At SSA, DOGE staffers swept into the agency days after Trump's inauguration and pressed for a software engineer to quickly get access to data systems that are normally carefully restricted even within the government, a former official said in court documents.

The team appeared to be searching for fraud based on inaccuracies and misunderstandings, according to Tiffany Flick, the former acting chief of staff to the acting commissioner.

Hollander, who is based in Baltimore and was nominated by President Barack Obama, is the latest judge to consider a DOGE related case. The team has drawn nearly two dozen lawsuits, some of which have shed light on staffing and operations that have largely been kept under wraps.

Several judges have raised questions about DOGE's sweeping cost-cutting efforts, but they have not always agreed that the risks are imminent enough to block the team from government systems.

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Associated Press writer Lea Skene in Baltimore contributed reporting.