Trump Administration Admits DOGE May Have Misused Americans’ Social Security Data

The Trump administration has acknowledged in court filings that members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an initiative associated with Elon Musk, may have improperly accessed and shared Americans’ Social Security data.

According to the documents, two DOGE members may have accessed Social Security numbers and potentially shared them as part of an effort to assist a political advocacy group seeking to “overturn election results in certain States” last year. The disclosure was first reported by Politico and emerged through a series of corrections to earlier testimony given by senior officials at the Social Security Administration (SSA). These corrections are tied to ongoing legal disputes over DOGE’s access to sensitive SSA data.

The court filings do not identify either the two DOGE members involved or the advocacy group that contacted them. In a sworn statement, Justice Department official Elizabeth Shapiro wrote that in March 2025, the advocacy group reached out to two DOGE team members working within the SSA. The group requested assistance in analysing the state voter rolls it had obtained.

“The advocacy group’s stated aim was to find evidence of voter fraud and to overturn election results in certain States,” Shapiro wrote in the filing.

Following those communications, one of the DOGE members, acting in their capacity as an SSA employee, signed and sent a “Voter Data Agreement” to the advocacy group, according to the documents. Shapiro stated that the DOGE members may have accessed private SSA information that a court had already ruled off-limits at the time and may have shared data using unapproved third-party servers.

“At this time, there is no evidence that SSA employees outside of the involved members of the DOGE Team were aware of the communications with the advocacy group. Nor were they aware of the ‘Voter Data Agreement,’” Shapiro wrote.

It remains unclear whether the DOGE members ultimately shared the data with the advocacy group. However, Shapiro noted that internal emails “suggest that DOGE Team members could have been asked to assist the advocacy group by accessing SSA data to match to the voter rolls.”

The SSA has since referred the two DOGE employees for potential Hatch Act violations, which prohibit federal employees from using their official roles for political purposes.

The revelations follow earlier legal actions against DOGE. Last year, a federal judge issued an order blocking DOGE members from accessing SSA systems containing highly sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers, medical records, driver’s license details, tax data, and other private records. Separately, an SSA whistleblower later alleged that DOGE uploaded hundreds of millions of Social Security records to a cloud server with significant security vulnerabilities.