When Americans re-elected Donald Trump in 2024 as president, he established a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which was supposed to help cut government spending. The organisation had access to a wide variety of Americans' personal data, including social security details, which raised concerns among critics. Now, a new report claims that their criticism may not have been unfounded.

According to reporting from The Washington Post, the Social Security Administration’s internal watchdog is investigating a whistleblower complaint alleging that a former U.S. DOGE Service employee copied highly sensitive Social Security databases with plans to use the data at a private company.

The complaint centres on two of the government’s most sensitive data systems: Numident and the Master Death File. Together, they hold records for more than 500 million living and deceased Americans, including Social Security numbers, birth records, citizenship details, and family information.

According to the whistleblower disclosure, the former software engineer allegedly told colleagues that he had obtained copies of the databases while working at the agency. At one point, the complaint says, he claimed to have stored at least one of them on a thumb drive and asked for help transferring the data to a personal computer so he could “sanitise” it before using it at his new employer.

The idea behind sanitising the data, according to the complaint, was to remove personal identifiers before...

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