Report: Former DOGE employee allegedly stole Social Security data

A former software engineer for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—the government agency led by Elon Musk—reportedly stole Americans’ personal data from the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) and stored it on a thumb drive. According to a whistleblower complaint reported by The Washington Post, the former employee worked at the SSA last year before leaving in October. The individual reportedly told colleagues at a new job that he held two tightly restricted databases of U.S. citizens’ information—specifically the “Numident” and “Master Death File” databases—and claimed to have had unrestricted administrative access—often described as God-level access—to SSA systems. The whistleblower report alleges that these databases contained records for more than 500 million living and dead Americans, including Social Security numbers, places and dates of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, and parents’ names.

The Social Security Administration has denied that a former employee stole data on U.S. citizens. A spokesperson for the Social Security Administration dismissed the whistleblower allegations, stating that The Washington Post was “desperate for clicks and eager to publish fake news to scare seniors.” The independent inspector general’s office is reportedly investigating the whistleblower complaint.

This incident is the latest in a series of controversies involving DOGE’s involvement with the SSA. In January, two DOGE members were suspected of accessing and sharing Social Security numbers to aid an advocacy group that intended to overturn election results in certain States, according to a lawsuit. Another whistleblower complaint from last year alleged that DOGE members put Americans at risk by uploading hundreds of millions of Social Security records to a vulnerable cloud server. These events follow a ruling last year in which a judge blocked DOGE from accessing SSA systems, accusing the agency of being essentially engaged in a fishing expedition—which the judge described as an investigation conducted without specific evidence. At least a dozen DOGE employees, primarily technical staff and engineers, have worked at the SSA, though their specific roles were reportedly not communicated to the rest of the agency’s staff.

Why it matters

This incident highlights ongoing security concerns surrounding the Department of Government Efficiency’s access to sensitive U.S. government databases, marking the latest in a series of alleged data mishandling reports.