The Department of Government Efficiency placed the personal data of millions of Americans, including Social Security numbers, on a vulnerable cloud server in June, according to a new whistleblower complaint by the Social Security Administration's chief data officer, Charles Borges.
The filing says the copy of the agency’s database "apparently lacks any security oversight from SSA," putting more than 300 million people at risk if bad actors gain access.
In the complaint, which was first reported by The New York Times, Borges alleges DOGE's actions "constitute violations of laws, rules, and regulations, abuse of authority, gross mismanagement and creation of a substantial and specific threat to public health and safety." He says the duplicate dataset was pulled from SSA's Numident file, which contains sensitive details such as names, phone numbers, addresses, birth dates and parents' identifiers.
Borges also says SSA Chief Information Officer Aram Moghaddassi, a DOGE-affiliated official installed this summer, approved creating the copy in a way that circumvented normal oversight and that agency officials granted DOGE staff "improper and excessive access" to multiple databases in March.
The Government Accountability Project...
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