Indeed, the very first regulation issued by the three-member Social Security Board (the predecessor to today’s Social Security Commissioner) was about keeping Americans’ data secure and private. Not only was it the very first regulation, it was distributed to every employee. To this day, every single Social Security Administration employee and contractor must complete privacy and security awareness training every single year.
When [Trump] was inaugurated, he appropriately named Michelle King, a nonpartisan, extremely experienced career civil servant, as the acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration. However, when she declined to hand over all of that sensitive data, Trump removed her.
Trump jumped over 120 more experienced employees to name King’s replacement: A mid-level employee who was on administrative leave. Why was he on administrative leave? Because he had been providing Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with your private Social Security data.
Not surprisingly, the Trump administration is indeed sharing and misusing your data. In multiple whistleblower complaints, ongoing federal investigations, and court filings, operatives embedded in Social Security by DOGE have been accused of:
- Copying Social Security databases to an unsecured cloud server — exposing your personal information to hackers, scammers and foreign adversaries.
- Signing an agreement to share Social Security data with a political advocacy group whose stated aim was to overturn election results.
- Storing Social Security databases on a personal thumb drive to take to their next employer — a private government contractor.
Given DOGE’s utter carelessness and impunity with regard to our most private data, there’s no limit to the individuals, corporations or foreign entities who might possess it. In the words of Charles Borges, whistleblower and former chief data officer of the Social Security Administration, “There could be one or a million copies of it, and we will never know now.”
Stealing one person’s Social Security data is a felony. DOGE is accused of stealing the data of 500 million Americans, living and dead. That amounts to the greatest data theft in history.
Add new comment