Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, SENATE NEWS—Bill would strengthen Privacy Act protections, allow Americans to sue government officials, (Apr 2, 2025)
By Lauren Bikoff, MLS
The new legislation is designed to bring the 50-year-old Privacy Act’s provisions into the digital age and to bolster consumer protections against data misuse.
Senate Democrats have released the Privacy Modernization Act of 2025 to make it easier for Americans to sue government officials for the misuse of sensitive personal information in the wake of recent efforts by Elon Musk, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and other government officials “illegally accessing personal data held by the government, including Social Security numbers, medical history, financial data, and other sensitive data.” The bill is sponsored by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).
“Over 50 years ago, Congress passed the Privacy Act to protect the public against the exploitation and misuse of their personal information held by the government,” Markey said. “Today, with Elon Musk and the DOGE team recklessly seeking to access Americans’ sensitive data, it’s time to bring this law into the digital age. The federal government should be a steward of our privacy—not a source of surveillance.”
Enacted after the Watergate and Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) scandals, the Privacy Act of 1974 required agencies to disclose what personal data they collect and why, limited how officials could use or share that data, and created remedies for when the government held incorrect data about a person or otherwise broke the rules. The Privacy Modernization Act of 2025 would:
increase civil and criminal penalties for violations of the Privacy Act, including making it a felony to disclose records for personal gain, malicious harm, or commercial advantage, punishable by fines of up to $250,000 and 10 years in prison;
strengthen court authority to stop programs and actions while lawsuits are pending and allow Americans to recover for a range of damages, including the mental and emotional distress caused by privacy violations;
modernize the law to cover any information that identifies or is linked or reasonably linkable to an individual or a device that is linked or reasonably linkable to an individual;
limit information sharing to the minimum necessary for a legally authorized purpose, and only if consistent with what an agency previously stated they would use records for; and
narrow the so-called “routine use” exception for sharing information by further requiring that “routine use” disclosures be “appropriate and reasonably necessary.”
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