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Congress and the Social Security Administration’s inspector long-established are investigating whistleblower claims about whether Department of Government Efficiency workers could perhaps simply have misused Social Security data.

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An interior authorities watchdog and members of Congress are one at a time investigating new allegations that a Department of Government Efficiency staffer doubtlessly misused sensitive Social Security data.

The Social Security Administration’s inspector long-established notified the leaders of several House and Senate committees on March 6 that it is reviewing an anonymous complaint “on matters relating to the potential misuse of SSA data by a former DOGE employee, among other allegations,” basically basically based totally on a replica of the letter bought by NPR.

This week, congressional Democrats investigating DOGE’s salvage entry to to Social Security data moreover equipped an expanded probe after receiving whistleblower data alleging that a former DOGE tool engineer at SSA claimed to have retained copies of sensitive databases stuffed with interior most data about nearly every residing American. The whistleblower’s allegations were first reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday.

In line with the Post‘s reporting, the former DOGE employee claimed that at the least one database became held on a non-public thumb power and claimed to have retained “God-level” salvage entry to to SSA systems, the whistleblower alleged. The previous staffer moreover allegedly urged colleagues they wished to portion the info with their interior most-sector employer, the Post reported. NPR has now no longer reviewed the whistleblower complaint.

Earn. Robert Garcia of California, the House Oversight Committee’s top Democrat, known as the allegations “deeply disturbing” and talked about they level to the Trump administration’s “callous disregard for the safety and security of Americans’ most sensitive information.”

“Not only has an ex-DOGE bro been accused of running around with the Social Security information of every American on a flash drive, he also may have the ability to edit and manipulate data at the Social Security Administration at will,” Garcia wrote in a statement.

The Blueprint of job of the Inspector Total for the Social Security Administration declined to comment, asserting it doesn’t confirm or articulate the existence of legislation enforcement investigations.

The inspector long-established’s position of job urged lawmakers in its March 6 letter that it became now no longer sharing additional data about the anonymous complaint which ability that of that “risks jeopardizing any investigation and potentially chills future complainants from submitting anonymous allegations of fraud, waste, and abuse.”

An unnamed spokesperson for SSA disputed the whistleblower’s claims in an electronic mail to NPR.

“The allegations by a singular anonymous source have been strongly refuted by all named parties — SSA, the former employee, and the company. Even the Washington Post admitted they could not verify the information — because it is not true,” the spokesperson talked about. (The Post listing did no longer title the former DOGE employee or the firm they work for.)

“SSA is focused on continuing our digital-first transformation to deliver better, faster service for every American,” the spokesperson persisted, and went on to disparage The Washington Post.

Democrats in Congress name for extra investigations

The whistleblower alleged that the former DOGE staffer claimed to have retained copies of two databases, NUMIDENT and the Loss of life Grasp File, basically basically based totally on the Post‘s listing.

The NUMIDENT database contains sensitive recordsdata for nearly every American alive nowadays, including Social Security numbers, dates of birth, fatherland and folks’ names. The Loss of life Grasp File involves recordsdata for folks who were reported as deceased.

An aerial watch of the Social Security Administration’s predominant campus in Woodlawn, Md. The company is investigating claims that DOGE staff misused sensitive interior most data for hundreds and hundreds of American citizens.

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Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Pictures

As half of House Oversight Committee Democrats’ ongoing investigation into DOGE, Garcia is now asking the Social Security Administration to respond to questions about DOGE’s data salvage entry to and wants former DOGE staffers affiliated with SSA to contact the committee to “clarify the facts surrounding DOGE use of Americans’ sensitive data.”

Other Democratic lawmakers who got the letter from the SSA inspector long-established moreover recognized as for investigations into the whistleblower’s allegations.

“These allegations describe one of the largest known data breaches in American history, perpetrated by Trump appointees for the explicit purpose of weaponizing Americans’ sensitive personal data for political gain,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, talked about in a statement. “There must be a full public accounting of this breach at Social Security, including justice for anyone who committed or enabled criminal theft of Americans’ data.”

Earn. John B. Larson, D-Conn., and Richard E. Neal, D-Mass., who take a seat on the House Ways and Manner Committee, talked about in a statement: “These continued revelations demand a full investigation with accountability if wrongdoing is confirmed.”

A rising pattern of DOGE data salvage entry to concerns

The OIG investigation and the whistleblower complaint scheme after the Social Security Administration disclosed in January that DOGE staff secretly and improperly shared sensitive interior most data in 2025 and that the company could perhaps now no longer take a look at the extent of the violations.

The January disclosure became made in an ongoing court fight over whether DOGE improperly obtained salvage entry to to SSA data and abused that salvage entry to. The disclosure moreover talked about two unnamed DOGE staff were referred to a federal watchdog for doubtlessly violating the Hatch Act, which bars authorities staff from using their job for political job.

The court filing moreover talked about SSA stumbled on that the staff communicated with a political advocacy community about matching Social Security data with explain voter rolls.

DOGE crew members moreover circumvented the company’s IT rules and improperly shared data on outdoors servers, despatched interior most recordsdata to other DOGE staffers outdoors the company and had salvage entry to to some data even after a specialise in temporarily blocked salvage entry to.

Charles Borges, the former chief data officer at SSA, filed his have whistleblower disclosure final twelve months alleging that DOGE staffers improperly copied a dataset of extra than 300 million American citizens’ data into a digital database with out following security protocols.

Borges’ complaint talked about that final summer season, a former DOGE employee at the SSA requested that the company make a replica of its NUMIDENT database to a non-public cloud server that could perhaps effectively give DOGE officers unfettered salvage entry to to the info.

On Wednesday, Borges urged NPR the allegations made in the brand new whistleblower complaint would have “generational consequences” if correct.

“This is exactly the scenario that kept me up at night. An irrecoverable loss of the entirety of our personal data. Once that data has ‘left the building’, you cannot close Pandora’s box again,” Borges talked about.

“The loss of this data would not be ‘just another data breach,’ but could represent a structural failure of our identity system,” he talked about. “It could require significant federal action, counterintelligence planning and response, and the consideration of a complete redesign of how identity works in the United States.”

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