Elon Musk's aides blocked access to the data of millions of US civil servants

Trump-appointed aides to Elon Musk have restricted career civil servants' access to the US Office of Personnel Management databases. The systems contain personal data of 2.2 million federal employees.

Elon Musk's aides, responsible for managing the US government's personnel service, have blocked career civil servants' access to computer systems. These systems contain the personal data of millions of federal employees. This is reported by Reuters.

Details

The news agency recalled that after taking office 11 days ago, President Donald Trump began a large-scale government overhaul. He has fired and suspended hundreds of civil servants in his first moves to reduce the bureaucracy and appoint people more loyal to him.

For example, billionaire Elon Musk, who Trump has tasked with cutting 2.2 million civil servants, quickly found allies in the agency known as the Office of Personnel Management.

Two officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity that some senior career employees at the Office had been denied access to some of the agency's information systems.

According to officials, these systems contain a large database called “Enterprise Human Resources Integration.” The database contains dates of birth, social security numbers, certifications, home addresses, salary levels and seniority of civil servants.

We have no idea what they are doing with the computer and data systems. This is very worrying. There is no oversight. This poses real threats to cybersecurity and hacking

– one of the officials said.

It is noted that the officials affected by this decision can still log in to the system and access functions such as email. But they can no longer see the vast data sets that span all aspects of the federal workforce.

The Office of Personnel Management has sent out memos that eschew the usual dry wording of government messages as they encourage civil servants to consider buyout offers to resign and take a vacation to a “dream destination.”

Don Moynihan, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy, said the actions within the Office raise concerns about congressional oversight of the agency and about how Trump and Musk view the federal bureaucracy.

“It makes it much harder for those outside Musk’s inner circle in the Office to understand what’s going on,” he said. Moynihan.