Wyden, Whitehouse Demand Update on DOGE Infiltration of the Social Security Administration

Wyden, Whitehouse Demand Update on DOGE Infiltration of the Social Security Administration

Trump put Americans' sensitive private data at risk

Washington, DC - U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), the Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), sent a letter to Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner Frank Bisignano urging the SSA to finally detail the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) activities at the Social Security Administration amid public reporting and whistleblower declarations revealing that DOGE personnel received unauthorized access to American's sensitive personal data.

"We write seeking meaningful transparency regarding the handling of various information security risks involving staff from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency at the Social Security Administration and to follow up on inadequate responses to prior Congressional inquiries on these matters," wrote Wyden and Whitehouse. "Over the past fourteen months, we have repeatedly sought basic information about DOGE's activities at SSA. Your responses have either been unresponsive or later disproved by SSA's own admissions."

Wyden, Whitehouse, and Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) first wrote to Commissioner Bisignano in November 2025 urging the SSA to take all appropriate steps to guarantee that DOGE's actions did not American seniors exposed to identity theft, fraud, or other risks. In a later Department of Justice (DOJ) court filing, the federal government disclosed that DOGE staffers shared sensitive data on a third-party server - without the knowledge of SSA officials - and shared data with an outside political group. The Washington Post reported in March on a whistleblower disclosure claiming a DOGE employee copied a database of highly sensitive SSA data on a personal thumb drive to share with his new private sector employer.

"These admissions and whistleblower statements damage SSA's decades-long history of protecting Americans' sensitive information and discredit your past assurances to protect Americans' data. It is long overdue you provide the American people a straight answer," concluded the senators.

The DOGE infiltration of SSA and other administrative agencies posed substantial risks to Americans' data and wellbeing. New reporting in the Washington Post found that at least two dozen former DOGE staffers remain embedded in the Trump administration, many of whom have been handed key national security or data security positions. Vulnerabilities and bugs left behind in these systems could put Americans at risk of getting scammed, hacked, or even spied on by foreign governments.

Last July, Wyden, Whitehouse and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) introduced the Pick Up After Your DOGE Act, legislation requiring a comprehensive audit of federal agency computer systems and networks accessed by DOGE staff. Without a proper and total review of security vulnerabilities, the risk remains that Donald Trump's Big Tech and AI allies are given unfettered access to a massive trove of Americans' data by former DOGE employees to enrich themselves and undermine their competitors.

A PDF of the letter is available here and the text of the letter is below.

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