Days after filing a whistleblower complaint, the chief data officer of the Social Security Administration, Charles Borges, stepped down. He claimed that the agency posed risks to Americans’ Social Security data. In his resignation letter, Borges expressed that he faced unbearable working conditions due to repercussions from raising alarms about data security.
Borges reported serious concerns about the safety of sensitive personal data belonging to over 300 million Americans. He stated that employees from Elon Musk’s DOGE had created a vulnerable copy of this data on a cloud server. The records included names, Social Security numbers, and dates of birth.
His whistleblower complaint, supported by the Government Accountability Project, highlighted a distressing environment at the agency. Borges mentioned being isolated and feeling a culture of fear. He also claimed that leadership frequently hinted at employee firings and neglected his requests for essential information.
Despite raising these issues, Borges had seen no corrective actions taken by the agency. He described a “culture of panic and dread” among employees and emphasized the risks he faced by continuing in his role.
The Social Security Administration has yet to comment on the situation. Concerns over data privacy have been rising ever since DOGE was allowed to work with federal agencies, including Social Security, during the Trump administration. Advocacy groups have fought against DOGE’s access to private records, fearing impacts on citizens’ privacy.
Interestingly, surveys show that around 70% of Americans are worried about the security of their personal data held by the government. This incident only fuels those anxieties and raises questions about the safety of sensitive information in the hands of third-party organizations.
Overall, Borges’s case sheds light on not only data security issues within government agencies but also the broader concerns of transparency and accountability in handling citizens’ personal information.
For additional context, you can check the Government Accountability Project’s detailed reporting on these issues here.
