Privacy bill carves out DOGE from its own protections for 2 years.
S. 1208 — Privacy Act Modernization Act of 2025 · Filed by Ron Wyden (D-OR) · 3 cosponsors · Introduced Mar 31, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill modernizes the Privacy Act by expanding the definition of 'record' to cover any personally identifiable information (including device identifiers), broadening who is protected (non-citizens in the U.S., not just citizens and permanent residents), and strengthening enforcement with higher civil damages ($1,000 minimum, plus punitive damages and attorney fees) and new felony penalties for commercial misuse. However, it contains a critical carve-out: DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency), its staff, and any agency under DOGE control are exempt from these protections for 2 years, meaning records held by or disclosed by DOGE entities face no Privacy Act liability.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core function is to modernize and strengthen the Privacy Act—a genuine public-interest reform. However, the operative mechanism includes a time-limited but sweeping exemption for DOGE and its personnel, which inverts the bill's protective intent for the specific government entity most likely to conduct mass records reviews.
- Section 4(c) exempts DOGE, its staff, and agencies under DOGE control from Privacy Act compliance for 2 years—unrelated to the bill's stated modernization purpose.
What the text implies
- DOGE can conduct records matching, analysis, and disclosure without Privacy Act notice, consent, or use-limitation requirements that bind other agencies.
- Citizens have no civil remedy (no damages, no attorney fees) for Privacy Act violations by DOGE during the 2-year window, even if records are misused or disclosed.
- The exemption applies to 'any agency not described in subparagraph (A) or (B) that is headed by, or subject to the control of' DOGE leadership—potentially sweeping in multiple agencies.
- Section 4(d) extends the exemption even when DOGE personnel act 'outside of the capacity' of their DOGE role, creating ambiguity about when the exemption ends.
- The 2-year sunset is not automatic; it requires no affirmative action to extend and may be renewed by subsequent legislation.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
While the bill strengthens Privacy Act protections for most federal agencies, the 2-year exemption for DOGE and agencies under its control creates a significant privacy gap precisely where government efficiency audits and personnel reviews are most likely to occur. Citizens' records can be collected, analyzed, and disclosed by DOGE without the legal remedies, notice requirements, or use restrictions that apply elsewhere in government.
Named in the bill
DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), U.S. DOGE Service, U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization, DOGE Team, Executive Order 14158, Federal agencies, Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a), Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978
Where it stands
3 cosponsors: 3 Democrats.
- Mar 31, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Mar 31, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $1,080,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 21 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Ron Wyden, the sponsor, reported $375,070 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Finseca — $1,080,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (11,911 characters) on Sep 5, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Privacy bill carves out DOGE from its own protections for 2 years.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s1208 Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.