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A staff member working for the Department of Government Efficiency ( DOGE ) broke Treasury policies by sending an email containing unencrypted personal information , according to testimony from a older governing cybersecurity official in a federal suit .
Marko Elez , a DOGE staffer working at the U.S. Treasury , email a spreadsheet with unencrypted in person identifiable data to two Trump administration officials prior to his surrender in early February afterracist social media posts linked to Elez come out online .
Details of the protection lapse emerged in a court filing on Friday containing testimonial by David Ambrose , the chief surety and privacy officer at the Treasury ’s Bureau of Fiscal Services , the partition of the Treasury thatdisburses some 1000000000000 of clam in Union fundsto American households every year . Acoalition of U.S. lawyer generalbrought the lawsuit in an effort to block the Trump governance ’s team of DOGE cost - cutters from accessing highly sensitive personal and financial data on trillion of Americans withstand by the Treasury unit where Elez was posted .
Perthe court of law filing on Friday , Ambrose enounce the Treasury conducted a forensic depth psychology of Elez ’s department - put out laptop computer conform to his surrender , which included a review of his Treasury email history reveal the security measures reversion .
The filing did not say exactly what datum was share , but described the personal information as including a name ( such as a someone or entity ) , the case of transaction , and an amount of money .
Ambrose said Elez play “ perverse to [ the department ’s ] policy ” because the data was not encrypted nor was the email O.K. before it was sent .
Bloomberg was thefirst to reportthe court filing on Friday .
Elez was rehired on February 18 . He now work out at the Social Security Administration , a person familiar with personnel matter state TechCrunch .
In response to the filing , the coalition of U.S. attorneys general that convey the suitsaid on Fridaythat Ambrose ’s declarations “ do nothing to allay any of the concerns ” that the states brought “ about the rushed and chaotic nature of the Treasury DOGE Team onboarding process . ”
In a separate case , a federal court is alsoconsidering halt DOGE from get at systemsat the Social Security Administration that give sensitive selective information on Americans .
Elez did not return TechCrunch ’s request for comment .
