US: DOGE employee accused of stealing social security numbers
What's the story
A whistleblower complaint has alleged that a former employee of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), stole sensitive personal information from the US Social Security Administration (SSA). The individual, whose name has not been disclosed, is said to have stored this data on a thumb drive. The claim was first reported by The Washington Post and is currently being investigated by the SSA's inspector general.
Data breach
Data could include details of over 500M Americans
The complaint alleges that the former DOGE software engineer had access to two highly restricted databases of US citizens' information. These databases, known as "Numident" and "Master Death File," could contain data on over 500 million living and deceased Americans. This includes their Social Security numbers, birth dates and places, citizenship status, race/ethnicity, and parents' names.
Official response
SSA denies allegations, calls report 'fake news'
A spokesperson for the SSA, which is still under DOGE's control, has denied the allegations of data theft. The spokesperson dismissed The Washington Post's report as "fake news" intended to scare seniors. However, the inspector general's office, which operates independently from the Donald Trump administration, has not yet commented on this matter.
Past breaches
Previous accusations against DOGE
This isn't the first time DOGE has been linked to a potential data breach. In January, two DOGE members were accused of accessing and distributing Social Security numbers to help an advocacy group trying to overturn election results in certain states. A whistleblower also alleged that DOGE members had uploaded hundreds of millions of Social Security records onto an unsecured cloud server, putting Americans at risk.