The top data official from the Social Security Administration is warning that the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency has put the Social Security information of more than 300 million Americans at risk of exposure to malicious actors.
A new whistleblower disclosure from SSA Chief Data Officer Charles Borges reported that DOGE officials, while working at SSA, authorized themselves to create a live, cloud-based version of SSA’s entire dataset, containing personal information of millions of Americans. DOGE officials uploaded the dataset to a vulnerable system, without including measures for security or oversight, according to a whistleblower disclosure that the Government Accountability Project submitted to the Office of Special Counsel and multiple congressional committees this week.
The report noted that SSA’s data contained details that individuals submit when applying for a Social Security card. Generally, that includes their name, location and date of birth, citizenship status, race and ethnicity, phone number, mailing address, and their parents’ names and Social Security numbers, along with other sensitive information.
“Should bad actors gain access to this cloud environment, Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft, lose vital healthcare and food benefits, and the government could be responsible for re-issuing every American a new Social Security number,” the whistleblower report reads.
A spokesperson for SSA said the agency takes all whistleblower complaints seriously and remains dedicated to protecting sensitive personal data — but added that SSA was “not aware” of any data compromises.
“SSA stores all personal data in secure environments that have robust safeguards in place to protect vital information,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “The data referenced in the complaint is stored in a long-standing environment used by SSA and walled off from the internet. High-level career SSA officials have administrative access to this system with oversight by SSA’s Information Security team.”
The White House did not respond to Federal News Network’s request for comment.
Officials employed at DOGE first sought access SSA’s data in January, after the Trump administration issued an executive order to establish DOGE as a federal entity, initially led by billionaire Elon Musk. A lawsuit in March temporarily blocked DOGE’s access to sensitive data at SSA. In June, the Supreme Court ultimately sided with the Trump administration in allowing DOGE to continue accessing the personal information of millions of Americans through Social Security’s data systems.
The new whistleblower disclosure from Borges details instances of DOGE officials at SSA circumventing the court’s orders earlier this year, as well as approving “high-risk activities” that are not part of SSA’s standard review and approval procedures. The report stated that within 24 hours of the court issuing a temporary restraining order (TRO) in late March, senior career officials at SSA “received instructions to undo the court-ordered access restrictions for two DOGE employees.”
“Furthermore, the requested access was for new and expanded privileges beyond the privileges that were in place at the time of the TRO,” the report states.
The whistleblower report is the latest complaint against DOGE and the unprecedented access the administration gave the federal entity to personal data across the government, as part of Trump’s mandate to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. Labor and retiree groups sued SSA earlier this year for giving DOGE access to Americans’ sensitive agency data, though a divided appeals panel decided this month that DOGE could access the information.
“In the past, government agencies have worked hard to keep that information safe and secure, both to protect the American people’s private data and to ensure that government agencies don’t use it for the wrong purposes,” Tim Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said by email. “All that is out the window now, as Congress and the courts have acquiesced to this dangerous power grab. It has been happening in plain sight for months now.”
Borges, who filed the whistleblower complaint this week, is a career federal employee who has been working as SSA’s chief data officer since Jan. 27. He has also worked in prominent positions overseeing data and IT at the General Services Administration, the Office of Management and Budget and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He served in the Navy for 22 years prior to joining the civil service.
“Mr. Borges raised concerns to his supervisors about his discovery of a disturbing pattern of questionable and risky security access and administrative misconduct that impacts some of the public’s most sensitive data,” said Andrea Meza, the Government Accountability Project’s director of campaigns, who is serving as Borges’ attorney. “Mr. Borges’ bravery in coming forward to protect the American public’s data is an important step towards mitigating the risks before it is too late.”
The whistleblower disclosure, which was first reported by the New York Times, requested that Congress and OSC further investigate DOGE’s actions at SSA. An OSC spokesperson told Federal News Network that, as part of OSC’s policy to protect whistleblower confidentiality and the disclosure process, she could not confirm or deny the existence of a disclosure filed with the agency.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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