FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 10, 2026
April 10, 2026
Contact:
Brittany Holder
(202) 737-8700
[email protected]
AFGE Sounds the Alarm on OPM’s Plan to Collect Personal Identifiable Health Records of More Than 8 Million Federal Employees and Their Families
Categories:
OPM
Collecting personal identifiable health records violates the privacy of workers and their families.
WASHINGTON – The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest union representing federal employees, is deeply alarmed by the Office of Personnel Management’s proposal to collect personally identifiable medical records from the insurance companies that cover more than eight million federal workers, retirees, members of Congress, postal employees, and their families.
AFGE National President Everett Kelley issued the following statement:
“This proposal, published without fanfare in December, would require 65 insurers to submit monthly reports to OPM containing individual health data, including prescription records, diagnoses, treatment histories, and provider information, with no requirement that identifying information be removed. Health law experts, former OPM officials, and major insurance carriers have raised serious legal concerns about whether this proposal complies with HIPAA. CVS Health has stated plainly that complying with OPM’s request would require insurers to break the law.
“AFGE shares those concerns, and we go further. This proposal does not exist in isolation. It comes in the context of coordinated attacks on federal employees and repeated stretching of the legal boundaries for sharing sensitive personal data across government agencies. The question of what this administration intends to do with eight million Americans’ most private health information is not academic. It is urgent.
“Legal experts have already noted that this data could be used to discipline or target workers who are not complying with the administration’s political directives. It could be used to identify employees who have sought care that this administration has made a specific target of its policy agenda, including reproductive health care and gender-affirming treatment. And it would be held by an agency that, in 2015, suffered one of the largest federal data breaches in American history, compromising the personal records of roughly 22 million people.
“OPM has provided no meaningful explanation for why it needs identifiable data rather than the de-identified claims data that would serve any legitimate cost-management purpose. It has offered no information about how the data would be protected or how it would be used. That silence is not reassuring.
“We expect that the Office of Management and Budget will publish a corresponding notice in the coming weeks, opening an additional public comment period. AFGE will submit formal comments opposing this proposal and urging its withdrawal.
“We also call on Congress to demand answers from OPM about the legal basis, the intended use, and the safeguards for this data before any final rule is issued.
“Federal workers are public servants. They deserve a government that treats their medical privacy with the same dignity and care they bring to serving the American people every day. This proposal does neither.”
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