The Social Security Administration’s internal watchdog has opened a probe into an alleged misuse of sensitive SSA records by a former Department of Government Efficiency worker, The Associated Press reported, citing a document reviewed by the news organization. The investigation is tied to a whistleblower complaint and is being handled by the SSA inspector general, which the document says notified leadership of four congressional committees that it was launching the inquiry.
The Associated Press said the inspector general initiated the probe after receiving an anonymous complaint. The SSA’s watchdog described the probe as addressing a former DOGE worker’s “potential misuse of data obtained from the Social Security Administration,” according to the document.
The trigger for heightened scrutiny includes reporting that preceded the watchdog probe. The Washington Post reported earlier that a former DOGE software engineer allegedly told co-workers that he possessed two tightly restricted databases containing U.S. citizens’ information and that he had at least one data set stored on a thumb drive that he planned to share with his new employer.
SSA officials and the people and entities connected to the allegations deny wrongdoing. The agency said the allegations have been refuted by the SSA, the former employee, and the company, according to the Associated Press account of the watchdog document and related reporting.
Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the Senate Finance Committee’s ranking member, pressed for transparency. In a statement provided to The Associated Press, Wyden said the allegations, if true, would represent “one of the largest known data breaches in American history” and called for a “full public accounting.”
The dispute highlights the sensitivity of SSA’s records. The Social Security Administration maintains information on hundreds of millions of people, including health diagnoses, income, banking information, familial relationships and personal biographic data, according to the AP report.
The AP account also pointed to prior disclosures and legal proceedings that have kept the spotlight on DOGE access to SSA data. It cited a disclosure filed last August by whistleblower Charles Borges, then described as the SSA’s chief data officer, in which Borges stated that more than 300 million Americans’ Social Security data was put at risk after DOGE officials uploaded sensitive information to a cloud account not subject to oversight.
In January, the Trump administration admitted in court that DOGE workers had unauthorized access to sensitive SSA data and shared SSA data using an unapproved third-party service. The administration also acknowledged that the work included activities beyond the scope of the SSA’s mission, including signing a “voter data agreement” with a political advocacy group, the AP report said. That litigation is ongoing.