Department of Government Efficiency officials may have created an insecure cloud copy of American Social Security data, a whistleblower report released Monday showed.
However, the Social Security Administration says it is not aware of any leak of the database.
“We are not aware of any compromise to this environment and remain dedicated to protecting sensitive personal data,” a spokesperson for the SSA said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
According to the whistleblower report, SSA Chief Data Officer Chuck Borges believes the DOGE officials employed by the SSA have created “serious data lapses” that “risk the security of over 300 million Americans’ Social Security data,” his lawyers from the Government Accountability Project wrote in the complaint.
“The data referenced in the complaint is stored in a long-standing environment used by SSA and walled off from the internet. High-level career SSA officials have administrative access to this system with oversight by SSA’s Information Security team,” a spokesperson for the SSA said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
DOGE officials created “a live copy of the country’s Social Security information in a cloud environment that circumvents oversight,” Borges lawyers alleged in the complaint. His attorneys said the data that could be compromised includes all information American include when applying for a Social Security card — such as the applicant’s name, place and date of birth, the social security numbers of their parents, citizenship information, etc.
“Should bad actors gain access to this cloud environment, Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft, may lose vital healthcare and food benefits, and the government may be responsible for re-issuing every American a new Social Security Number at great cost,” Borges lawyers wrote in the complaint.
Borges specifically named as wrongdoers DOGE employees Aram Moghaddassi, the Chief Information Officer at the SSA; John Solly; Michael Russo; and Edward Coristine, the 19-year-old employee nicknamed “Big Balls” who was assaulted in the streets of D.C. in early August.
The complaint comes after DOGE came under scrutiny in early 2025 and several unions and retiree groups filed a lawsuit over DOGE seeking access to SSA data. The Supreme Court ordered that it would allow DOGE to access the Social Security data it has been requesting access to in a June 6-3 decision.
Before the Supreme Court settled the lawsuit, however, DOGE was under a restraining order since March 20 that prevented them from accessing the SSA data. The whistleblower’s attorneys argued that once the Supreme Court issued their order and the restraining order was lifted, the DOGE activities became much more high-risk.
“The violations progressed from emergency circumvention of court orders in March 2025 to systematic institutional approval of high-risk activities involving sensitive public data by July 2025,” Borges lawyers allege in the complaint.
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The Social Security Administration is adamant that it is not aware of any compromise to the data.
“Commissioner [Frank] Bisignano and the Social Security Administration take all whistleblower complaints seriously. SSA stores all personal data in secure environments that have robust safeguards in place to protect vital information,” a spokesperson for the SSA said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.