DOGE employee stole Social Security data and put it on a thumb drive, report says

A erstwhile worker of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency reportedly stole Americans’ idiosyncratic information from the U.S. Social Security Administration and stored it connected a thumb drive, according to a whistleblower ailment reported by The Washington Post.

A erstwhile DOGE bundle technologist told co-workers astatine their caller occupation that helium “possessed 2 tightly restricted databases of U.S. citizens’ information” and was readying to usage the accusation astatine his caller company, according to the report, which added that the Social Security Administration’s inspector wide is investigating the whistleblower complaint.

The Social Security Administration did not instantly respond to TechCrunch’s petition for comment. 

The erstwhile DOGE employee, whom The Washington Post did not name, worked astatine the Social Security Administration past year. In October helium past near to enactment astatine a authorities contractor, wherever helium told colleagues that helium had obtained 2 databases, called “Numident” and the “Master Death File,” according to The Post, which reported that the databases could see records for “more than 500 cardinal surviving and dormant Americans, including Social Security numbers, places and dates of birth, citizenship, contention and ethnicity, and parents’ names.”

The antheral besides reportedly claimed that helium antecedently had unrestricted “God-level” entree to the SSA’s systems.

This is the latest lawsuit of a suspected breach of Americans’ idiosyncratic information linked to DOGE and its incursion into the Social Security Administration. In January, 2 DOGE members were suspected of accessing and sharing Social Security numbers that were disconnected limits to them arsenic portion of an effort to assistance an advocacy radical that intended to “overturn predetermination results successful definite States,” according to a lawsuit. 

Another whistleblower wrong the bureau past twelvemonth said that DOGE members enactment Americans astatine hazard by uploading hundreds of millions of Social Security records to a susceptible unreality server. Also past year, a justice blocked DOGE from accessing SSA systems, accusing the Musk-led bureau of being “essentially engaged successful a sportfishing expedition” successful hunt of fraud. 

Several DOGE members were installed astatine the Social Security Administration aft Trump took bureau past year. According to The Washington Post, astatine slightest a twelve DOGE employees, astir of them method unit oregon engineers, worked astatine the agency, though their existent roles and activities were not communicated to the remainder of the staff.