A judge for the US District Court for the District of Maryland imposed a preliminary injunction on Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Thursday, restricting access to personally identifying data in the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) database.

The preliminary injunction comes after Judge Ellen Hollander granted a temporary restraining order on March 20, which temporarily restricted DOGE’s access to the personally identifying data from the SSA. In the 137-page temporary restraining order, Hollander stated that labor unions who brought the suit against DOGE were likely to succeed on their challenge that DOGE’s access to this personally identifiable information violated the Privacy Act.

The temporary injunction was set to expire on Thursday, so Hollander imposed this preliminary injunction to cement this privacy protection for an extended period of time. The present injunction does not restrict DOGE from obtaining access to information from the SSA that is stripped of any personally identifiable information, so long as the DOGE staffers undergo trainings and background checks before doing so. Hollander also made clear that this injunction does not apply to SSA workers who are not affiliated or working with DOGE.

In the Tuesday hearing in Baltimore, Hollander expressed her confusion on why DOGE needed “seemingly unfettered access” to the SSA’s data to uncover potential Social Security fraud, to which Justice Department attorney Bradley Humphreys responded that a restriction in access would impede the speed in which the agency conducts its work. Hollander and the labor unions behind this suit then emphasized the feeling of unease that this access has created in Social Security recipients.

Hollander’s injunction could potentially be appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.