A whistleblower complaint alleges a former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) software engineer removed Americans’ personal data from the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) and stored it on a thumb drive, according to a report from The Washington Post.
The whistleblower said the engineer worked at the U.S. Social Security Administration last year and left in October to join a government contractor, where he told colleagues he “possessed two tightly restricted databases of U.S. citizens’ information” and planned to share that information with his new employer.
Named databases included the “Numident” and the “Master Death File,” which could cover records for more than 500 million living and dead Americans, including Social Security numbers and birth data.
Observers say the episode adds to a pattern of concerns about DOGE’s work at the SSA, with earlier allegations of two DOGE members accessing off-limits Social Security numbers and a judge blocking DOGE from SSA systems last year.
The Social Security Administration inspector general is investigating the whistleblower complaint.