A whistleblower complaint alleged that a former employee of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) illegally copied sensitive Social Security data. The allegations have triggered a federal investigation and renewed concerns about the security of Americans’ personal information, The Washington Post reported.
According to reports, the Social Security Administration (SSA) inspector general is reviewing allegations that a former DOGE engineer transferred sensitive records from government databases onto a USB thumb drive before leaving the agency.
The alleged breach involves databases containing personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans, including Social Security numbers, birth details, and parental information
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What does the whistleblower claim?
The complaint alleges that a DOGE staffer working with the SSA had extensive system access and downloaded information from key government databases, including Numident, the agency’s master file containing identifying information linked to every Social Security number issued since 1936.
The “Numident” and “Master Death File” databases contain information on over 500 million Americans, both living and deceased. However, investigators have not confirmed the exact scale of the data involved.
According to the whistleblower, the engineer reportedly stored at least one dataset on a portable drive and may have taken it to a new private-sector job.
The engineer allegedly informed the whistleblower that he required assistance moving data from a thumb drive “to his personal computer so that he could ‘sanitize’ the data before using it at [the company],” according to the lawsuit. The engineer informed coworkers that he intended to upload the data into the company’s systems after removing any personal information.
According to the WaPo report, he told another coworker that he expected a presidential pardon if his activities were found to be unlawful. Still, the colleague declined to help him upload the data due to legal concerns.
The engineer’s success in uploading the data to the company’s system is not mentioned in the complaint.
The allegations are being examined by the SSA’s Office of Inspector General, which oversees misconduct investigations within the agency. If confirmed, the case could represent one of the most significant insider-access data security incidents affecting US government records.
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Public concern about data access and privacy
The new whistleblower complaint comes amid long-standing scrutiny of DOGE, a controversial initiative created during the Trump administration to reduce federal bureaucracy and cut costs.
Social media users are also worried about the new SAVE Act that the Trump administration is promoting before the November 2026 midterm elections. A user on X wrote, “This is why they are pushing for the SAVE Act in order to have permission for citizen data. American citizens, do not easily give up your right to privacy over a bill that pretends to be for the good.”
Earlier reporting indicated that DOGE personnel had gained access to sensitive SSA data during efforts to overhaul agency systems. Critics argue that the initiative bypassed traditional safeguards designed to protect federal databases.
Another user on X calls for filing a case against DOGE, and wrote, “A Class Action Law Suit needs to be filled on behalf of EVERY American Citizen whose data was breached. Force Elon and Trump to pay the damages by attaching their illicit earnings.”
In January, court filings also acknowledged that DOGE staffers accessed and shared Social Security information through external systems, further intensifying privacy concerns among lawmakers and digital-rights advocates.
Last year, Charles “Chuck” Borges, the senior data officer for the Social Security Administration, resigned after filing a whistleblower report alleging that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had improperly handled the personal information of over 300 million Americans.
Borges claimed that DOGE employees made a live duplicate of SSA’s private information, including Social Security numbers, in an unregulated cloud system that was open to hacking.