Justice Department Alerts Judge to Possible Misuse of SSA Data by DOGE Team
TL/DR –
The US Justice Department has informed a federal judge about potential misuse of Social Security Administration (SSA) data by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) related to possible voter fraud. The misuse was purportedly instigated by an unnamed political advocacy group who sought DOGE’s help to analyze state voter rolls. The Justice Department has not yet determined whether personal data was given to the political group, and only learned of the potential misuse during an unrelated review.
The Justice Department informed a federal judge that members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) collaborating with the Social Security Administration (SSA) might have improperly utilized obtained data.
In a recent court filing, they revealed that post a restraining order in March blocking DOGE’s access to SSA, a political advocacy group reached out to two DOGE team members for analyzing acquired state voter rolls.
The advocacy group’s objective was to unearth voter fraud and challenge election results in certain states, according to the Justice Department.
The first report on this court filing was by Politico.
The Justice Department reported that one DOGE team member signed a “Voter Data Agreement” with the advocacy group, which was sent four days post the restraining order.
There is no evidence that other SSA employees or the agency’s data exchange procedures were involved in the ‘Voter Data Agreement’ or communication with the advocacy group, the filing stated.
It remains uncertain if any personal data were shared with the political group.
The Justice Department was informed in November about this situation during an unrelated review, the same month DOGE ceased operations.
A temporary restraining order was signed by US District Judge Ellen Hollander, blocking DOGE access to personal information following a lawsuit by a government employees union against billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE.
“A fishing expedition at SSA is underway by the DOGE team in search of fraud, with minimal suspicion and potentially endangering private information,” quoted Judge Hollander.
Last year, The Supreme Court reversed the order, allowing DOGE to access SSA data for modernization and efficiency purposes.
An August whistleblower report claimed mishandling of SSA data by DOGE through a cloud environment that bypasses oversight.
The Justice Department conceded in Friday’s filing that some data was inadequately managed.
Members of SSA’s DOGE Team shared data through the unapproved third-party server ‘Cloudflare’ which is outside SSA’s security protocols, revealed the filing.
The Justice Department added that SSA discovered only through a recent review that DOGE Team used Cloudflare, and it remains unclear what data were shared and if they still exist on the server.
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