A former employee of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency allegedly stole Americans’ personal data from the U.S. Social Security Administration and stored it on a thumb drive, as reported in a whistleblower complaint by The Washington Post.
The ex-DOGE software engineer reportedly told colleagues at his new job that he had “two tightly restricted databases of U.S. citizens’ information” and intended to utilize the data at his new company. The Social Security Administration’s inspector general is investigating the whistleblower complaint.
The Social Security Administration has not yet commented to TechCrunch regarding the incident.
The unnamed former DOGE employee worked at the Social Security Administration last year and left in October for a government contractor job, where he confessed to obtaining two databases: “Numident” and the “Master Death File.” These databases reportedly contain records for over 500 million Americans, living and deceased, including sensitive data like Social Security numbers and personal information.
The man claimed he had unrestricted “God-level” access to SSA systems.
This incident is the latest suspected breach related to DOGE’s activities in the Social Security Administration. In January, two DOGE members were accused of accessing and sharing restricted Social Security numbers to aid an advocacy group aiming to “overturn election results in certain States,” according to a lawsuit.
Additionally, a whistleblower last year alleged that DOGE uploaded millions of Social Security records to a vulnerable cloud server. Furthermore, a judge previously barred DOGE from SSA system access, accusing the Musk-led agency of undertaking a frivolous search for fraud.
After Trump assumed office last year, several DOGE members joined the Social Security Administration. The Washington Post reported that at least a dozen DOGE employees, mostly technical staff or engineers, worked in the agency with undefined roles and activities kept from the general staff.