The U.S. DOGE Service is racing to build a single centralized database with vast troves of personal information about millions of U.S. citizens and residents, a campaign that often violates or disregards core privacy and security protections meant to keep such information safe, government workers say.
The team overseen by Elon Musk is collecting data from across the government, sometimes at the urging of low-level aides, according to multiple federal employees and a former DOGE staffer, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. The intensifying effort to unify systems into one central hub aims to advance multiple Trump administration priorities, including finding and deporting undocumented immigrants and rooting out fraud in government payments. And it follows a March executive order to eliminate “information silos” as DOGE tries to streamline operations and cut spending.
At several agencies, DOGE officials have sought to merge databases that had long been kept separate, federal workers said. For example, longtime Musk lieutenant Steve Davis told staffers at the Social Security Administration that they would soon start linking various sources of Social Security data for access and analysis, according to a person briefed on the conversations, with a goal of “joining all data across government.” Davis did not respond to a request for comment.
But DOGE has also sometimes removed protections around sensitive information — on Social Security numbers, birth dates, employment history, disability records, medical documentation and more. In one instance, a website for a new visa program wasn’t set up behind a protective virtual private network, as would be customary, according to a Department of Homeland Security employee and records obtained by The Washington Post.
Acting Social Security commissioner Leland Dudek said in a statement the agency has long shared data with other government agencies “to calculate and ensure proper payment of benefits.” Sharing data with DOGE “is a matter of common sense and something the public rightly expects from the federal government to ensure responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars.”
The current administration and DOGE are bypassing many normal data-sharing processes, according to staffers across 10 federal agencies, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution. For instance, many agencies are no longer creating records of who accessed or changed information while granting some individuals broader authority over computer systems. DOGE staffers can add new accounts and disable automated tracking logs at several Cabinet departments, employees said. Officials who objected were fired, placed on leave or sidelined.
The current administration and DOGE are bypassing many normal data-sharing processes, according to staffers across 10 federal agencies, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution. For instance, many agencies are no longer creating records of who accessed or changed information while granting some individuals broader authority over computer systems. DOGE staffers can add new accounts and disable automated tracking logs at several Cabinet departments, employees said. Officials who objected were fired, placed on leave or sidelined.
Often, DOGE appears to be collecting data for the sake of having it. One former DOGE employee said colleagues would return to headquarters triumphant about databases they had accessed, hauling laptops to a war room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building where Musk had set up shop. What the data had to offer was sometimes beside the point, the former DOGE employee said.
“This threat isn’t just going to exist tomorrow, but it is going to exist for decades to come,” said Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. “Whenever we’re thinking about privacy, it’s really hard to un-bake the cake.”
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