Social security card with a key
A whistleblower complaint filed by Social Security Administration Chief Data Officer Charles Borges alleges that members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) uploaded a database in June to a vulnerable cloud server, putting the personal information of more than 300 million Americans at risk.
The complaint does not indicate the database has been breached or that information has been used inappropriately, according to a New York Times report. SSA spokesman Nick Perrine told the Times that the agency is not aware of any compromise of the data in question or the environment where the data is stored, which he said is walled off from the Internet.
The complaint said data was copied to an internal server that only DOGE had access to, which circumvented required independent security monitoring. This environment is effectively a live copy of the entire country's Social Security information from the Numerical Identification System (NUMIDENT) database that apparently lacks any security oversight from SSA or tracking to determine who is accessing or has accessed the copy of this data, said the complaint. NUMIDENT contains all data submitted in an application for a Social Security card, including the name of the applicant, place and date of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, parents' names and Social Security numbers, phone number, address and other personal information, the complaint said.
“Should bad actors gain access to this cloud environment, Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft, may lose vital health care and food benefits, and the government may be responsible for reissuing every American a new Social Security number at great cost,” the complaint said.
The upload apparently was performed to improve the way SSA exchanged data with other parts of the government, Borges said. DOGE’s access to sensitive data in the interest of driving efficiency, sniffing out fraud and saving money became a topic of concern among opponents of the department’s activity under Elon Musk. Many privacy advocates and Democrats raised the alarm about the confidentiality of personal information that might be put at risk. A federal judge temporarily blocked DOGE’s access to sensitive Social Security data in March, but the Supreme Court overruled that decision on June 6, according to the Times report.
SSA's total benefits disbursements amount to more than $1.5 trillion annually, with more than one in five Americans receiving benefits from the agency. SSA has issued more than 450 million Social Security numbers to U.S. Citizens and eligible noncitizens to support the administration of federal programs like Medicare and Medicaid. The administration also assists with voter verification and collects tax and earnings information.
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