Since it appeared, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been synonymous with scandal, and not a day has gone by without making headlines. Apparently, now DOGE has compromised Social Security personal data of millions of users… Names, addresses, birth dates and affiliation numbers, all uploaded to an unmonitored server. Panic.
The complaint was filed by Charles Borges, head of data at the Social Security Administration, where he warned of “huge vulnerabilities” that could have catastrophic consequences. And although there is no proof yet that the database has been hacked, the mere fact of exposing it in a practically unprotected system without monitoring has unleashed a serious political and social storm.
Social Security in check
According to the complaint, DOGE employees uploaded the Numident database (a file containing all Social Security records) to an exclusive server that only DOGE could access. But the problem is that the server had no kind of security measures to support something like this, and it had already been flagged as “high risk” and that in case of failure the impact could be catastrophic. But DOGE did not care much about the warning and went ahead with the plan.
Elon Musk, Trump and the controversy
As we said, the combination Musk (DOGE) and Trump has been controversial since Trump returned to the White House for his second term. There was a moment when both confirmed (without proof, of course) that there were millions of deceased people still receiving Social Security payments, and that was the Trojan horse for DOGE to get its hands on the database (with prior free access granted by the Supreme Court, of course).
Of course, with this complaint on the table, the Trump-Musk connection is once again at the center of controversy because citizens’ privacy has once again become a political weapon.
Why did DOGE want this data?
Nobody knows, curious, right? What is known is that they had already used that data to build a database that helped the Immigration Office (the famous ICE) locate and deport migrants.
It is true that there is no official confirmation, but it is believed that it was for surveillance and deportation, and all that with information that was not protected as it should have been.
Vulnerability
Imagine, there are no signs that anyone has hacked it, but the risk that this information has fallen into the wrong hands is real, it was all the users’ information, which any wrongdoer could use for their own benefit.
Legal battle in progress
Several organizations and unions had already taken DOGE to court to prevent this access. But the Supreme Court gave them the green light. The case remains in the hands of the courts of appeal, and now, with Borges’ complaint, things get even more complicated.
What can we do as citizens?
Nothing, wait and trust, we cannot do anything else. When a government body fails in protecting citizens’ data, there is little we can do other than hope no one has accessed that information for their own benefit.
Can the government put the security of millions of people at risk for political or administrative reasons?
Because one thing is managing public data. Another, very different, is handing it over on a silver platter without the slightest care, in the middle of conspiracy theories and judicial decisions that increasingly raise more doubts.
If this does not set off all the alarms about how our most basic information is protected, we no longer know what will…