Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, WHISTLEBLOWERS—SSA’s chief data officer blows whistle on ‘serious data security lapses’ at hands of DOGE officials, including ‘Big Balls’, (Aug 26, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

The Government Accountability Project submitted a protected whistleblower disclosure to the Office of Special Counsel and Congress on his behalf; the risk is such that there has been talk of re-issuing all social security numbers, the whistleblower contends.

Today, the Government Accountability Project announced that it has submitted a protected whistleblower disclosure to the Office of Special Counsel and congressional committees, alleging alarming data security lapses involving over 300 million Americans’ social security information.

GAP is representing the whistleblower—the Chief Data Officer (CDO) at the Social Security Administration (SSA)—whose “disclosures involve wrongdoing including apparent systemic data security violations, uninhibited administrative access to highly sensitive production environments,[] and potential violations of internal SSA security protocols and federal privacy laws by DOGE personnel.” That personnel includes the 19-year-old DOGE employee known as “Big Balls” and three other DOGE-affiliated employees.

Specifically, the CDO, through GAP, has reported that DOGE officials employed by SSA have created a live copy of the country’s Social Security information in a cloud environment that circumvents oversight and could be accessed by others. As described in the letter, “This vulnerable cloud environment is effectively live copy of the entire country's Social Security information from the Numerical Identification System (NUMIDENT) database that apparently lacks any security oversight from SSA or tracking to determine who is accessing or has accessed the copy of this data.”

The CDO, who also leads the Office of Analytics, Review, and Oversight, is responsible for the safety, integrity, and security of the public’s data at SSA and his position requires full visibility into data access, data exchange, and cloud-based environments.

Lawsuit notwithstanding. A lawsuit was filed to stop DOGE’s access to the American public’s Social Security data earlier this year, but in June, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that allowed DOGE to access the data. According to the CDO, there have been multiple instances of wrongdoing at SSA progressing from a circumvention of the court’s order in March 2025 to approval of high-risk activities outside of normal review and approval procedures by July 2025. The CDO, GAP explains, provides details about how DOGE personnel appeared to have given themselves authorization to create a copy of SSA’s entire live set of data on the American public without any independent security or oversight mechanisms in place.

SSNs may need to be reissued? In August 2025, the CDO made internal disclosures to his superiors regarding how this authorization is an abuse of authority and constitutes gross mismanagement, poses a substantial and specific threat to public health and safety, and potentially violates the law. In response, the letter contends, one of his superiors noted the possibility that the SSA might have to re-issue Social Security Numbers to all who possess one, acknowledging the risk to the public.

“[The CDO] raised concerns to his supervisors about his discovery of a disturbing pattern of questionable and risky security access and administrative misconduct that impacts some of the public’s most sensitive data. Out of a sense of urgency and duty to the American public, he is now raising the alarm to Congress and the Office of Special Counsel, urging them to engage in immediate oversight to address these serious concerns,” said Andrea Meza, Director of Campaigns for Government Accountability Project and attorney for the CDO.

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