Overview

• The 6–3 ruling lifts a lower court injunction and allows the Department of Government Efficiency to review detailed SSA records while litigation continues in lower courts
• Justices in the majority cleared DOGE to access non-anonymized data including Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, health histories and financial information
• In her dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson cautioned that the decision poses “grave privacy risks for millions” and criticized the Court’s use of its shadow docket
• White House spokesperson Elizabeth Huston and SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano called the expansion essential for rooting out waste, fraud and abuse and modernizing federal systems
• Advocacy groups and affected plaintiffs have pledged to press further legal challenges, arguing the ruling undermines longstanding privacy protections