SSA Informant Warns of Significant Security Threat after DOGE Data Authorization
The Social Security Administration (SSA) is facing a new controversy as its Chief Data Officer, Charles Borges, has filed a whistleblower complaint this week, alleging questionable and risky security access and administrative misconduct at the SSA.
According to the disclosure, DOGE officials, while working at SSA, created a live, cloud-based version of SSA's entire dataset containing personal information of over 300 million Americans. This dataset, which includes sensitive details such as name, location, date of birth, citizenship status, race and ethnicity, phone number, mailing address, parents' names, and Social Security numbers, among other sensitive information, was reportedly uploaded to a vulnerable system without proper security or oversight measures.
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 controversy surrounding DOGE's access to SSA's data began in January, after the Trump administration issued an executive order to establish DOGE as a federal entity, initially led by billionaire Elon Musk. In March, a lawsuit temporarily blocked DOGE's access to sensitive data at SSA. However, in June, the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration, 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. This has raised concerns among various groups, including labor and retiree groups, who sued SSA earlier this year for giving DOGE access to Americans' sensitive agency data.
The SSA spokesperson stated that the agency takes all whistleblower complaints seriously and remains dedicated to protecting sensitive personal data. However, they added that SSA was "not aware" of any data compromises. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Government Accountability Project's director of campaigns, Andrea Meza, is serving as Borges' attorney. Tim Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, expressed concern about the access given to DOGE. The search results do not provide information about a person from the company DOGE who left as the data protection officer of the government's social insurance service to go public with a whistleblower report.
If malicious 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 disclosure requests that Congress and the Office of Special Counsel further investigate DOGE's actions at SSA.
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