A new whistleblower complaint alleges a former employee of the now-disbanded Department of Governmental Efficiency downloaded sensitive Social Security data onto a personal thumb drive and later bragged to colleagues about retaining sweeping access to agency systems. The Social Security Administration’s Office of Inspector General has opened an inquiry, according to letters sent to congressional oversight committees and described by multiple outlets.
The claims, if verified, would mark a stunning insider security failure inside one of the nation’s most sensitive data environments. One senior lawmaker, Sen. Ron Wyden, called the potential breach among the most consequential to date, warning that misuse of Social Security records could be leveraged for political or financial gain on a massive scale.
The complaint describes an ex-employee of the defunct federal IT initiative taking a removable drive loaded with Social Security data as he moved to a private-sector role. The individual allegedly boasted to former coworkers about retaining “god-level” access to agency systems and suggested a pardon would shield him if his actions were deemed illegal. None of those assertions have been independently verified, and the inspector general has not named the subject of the probe.
This is not the first red flag tied to the same initiative. A separate whistleblower previously claimed that contractors created a live, cloud-based...
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