The government already knows a lot about you. DOGE is trying to access all of it

Elon Musk’s crew throughout the Trump administration has sought sweeping entry to databases that retailer private info on tens of millions and tens of millions of People.

The info collected and maintained by the federal government is not simply your title, house handle, and Social Safety quantity.

Some federal companies retailer info that many individuals do not share even with their closest family and friends: Medical diagnoses and remedy. Notes from remedy periods. Whether or not an individual has filed for chapter. Detailed earnings info.

And now, Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity, or DOGE, has accessed closely safeguarded databases that retailer such private info, elevating deep alarm amongst federal staff and privateness advocates.

Musk says he’s focusing on waste and fraud. The govt order establishing DOGE says its objective is “modernizing Federal know-how and software program to maximise governmental effectivity and productiveness” and it instructs company heads to make sure DOGE “has full and immediate entry to all unclassified company information, software program programs, and IT programs.”

However Erie Meyer — who resigned final month from her put up as chief technologist on the Client Monetary Safety Bureau after the change in administration — does not belief DOGE.

“Half of what’s unnerving and is frightening each to firms whose knowledge is concerned and in addition People whose most delicate monetary info is in danger, is that we do not know what they’re doing,” she says.

Usually, in keeping with Meyer, federal workers dealing with delicate knowledge should go in depth background checks. However it is not clear what kind of vetting or background checks Musk’s employees has undergone.

Tax information reveal many features of somebody’s life.

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Tasos Katopodis/Getty Photos/Getty Photos North America

Musk says his staffers have to have the identical safety clearances as different workers. “Anybody from DOGE has to undergo the identical vetting course of that these federal workers went via,” Musk stated lately on The Joe Rogan Expertise.

Some company heads have pushed again on the notion that DOGE is accessing an excessive amount of knowledge, saying that DOGE has “read-only” entry, and can’t make adjustments of their programs.

At the least a dozen lawsuits have been filed over DOGE’s entry to knowledge. Unions and teams just like the Heart for Taxpayer Rights are submitting lawsuits — each to cease DOGE from accessing any extra knowledge, and to find what sort of info the crew has already collected.

Deep privateness issues

The dangers are actual, in keeping with the half-dozen know-how consultants who spoke with NPR for this story. People’ private knowledge may very well be offered, misplaced, or leaked. Or it may very well be used to counterpoint a number of. However above all, they warn: People’ important privateness is at stake.

There are a number of legal guidelines, together with the Privateness Act of 1974, that govern how the federal government collects and shops private knowledge. Strict guidelines restrict when authorities companies can share that knowledge with one another.

These limits are by design. “Everybody thinks the federal government already has this knowledge” in a linked approach, says one former federal employee who didn’t wish to be named to protect future job prospects. “However they actually do not, as a result of it is firewalled.”

Some present and former authorities staff worry that Musk’s plan is to deliver large quantities of presidency knowledge collectively, to create deeply private profiles on particular person People.

Certainly one of them is Jonathan Kamens, who was overseeing cybersecurity for VA.gov till he was terminated final month alongside some 40 of his colleagues on the U.S. Digital Service, a little bit recognized authorities unit that Trump was DOGE. He factors to authoritarian regimes that create dossiers used to manage people.

“That is what I would like folks to be petrified of,” says Kamens. “That this knowledge that the federal government has on them, which in some instances can be utilized to wreck them, will be used to wreck them.”

DOGE didn’t reply to questions from NPR concerning the private info it’s accessing and the way it plans to make use of that knowledge.

Here is an summary of some federal companies that maintain knowledge on massive swaths of People – and the place issues stand with the DOGE crew’s entry.

Elon Musk says he is focusing on waste and fraud within the federal authorities.

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Andrew Harnik/Getty Photos/Getty Photos North America

Inside Income Service (IRS)

What the company has: Names, addresses, Social Safety numbers for everybody who has paid federal taxes. Monetary info together with earnings and internet value. Checking account info for direct deposits. Any itemizations, from medical bills to charitable donations. Whether or not somebody has filed for chapter or been a sufferer of identification theft. And far could be inferred from the info, together with marital standing, dependents, and familial relationships.

The place issues stand: The White Home and Treasury Division have agreed to ban DOGE from accessing private taxpayer knowledge, The Washington Submit reported, and as a substitute can have read-only entry to anonymized tax knowledge. NPR has not independently confirmed this reporting, and the IRS didn’t reply to NPR’s request for info on what entry DOGE has.

However with new management coming to the IRS, there’s concern that DOGE’s entry may very well be expanded sooner or later, in keeping with a present worker who didn’t want to be recognized for worry of retaliation.

Why it issues: Tax information reveal many features of somebody’s life. Additionally, if somebody had the power to edit IRS knowledge, they might write their very own tax invoice all the way down to zero, and “max out these of your enemies,” stated the worker.

Social Safety Administration (SSA)

What the company has: Data of people’ lifetime wages and earnings. Social safety numbers of staff and their beneficiaries, and the kind and quantity of advantages they obtain. Data on these making use of for Supplemental Safety Earnings, together with citizenship standing, earnings, and cost quantity. Incapacity and well being standing knowledge on everybody who has utilized for Incapacity advantages.

The place issues stand: A coalition of unions and retirees have filed a lawsuit aiming to halt DOGE’s entry to SSA knowledge. Democratic senators together with Tammy Baldwin and Elizabeth Warren have despatched letters demanding to know precisely what entry DOGE has.

Leland Dudek, SSA’s appearing commissioner, stated in an earlier assertion that DOGE personnel have read-only entry and can’t make adjustments to programs, profit funds, or info.

Why it issues: Tiffany Flick, the company’s appearing chief of employees till she retired final month, expressed her issues about DOGE entry in a declaration included within the lawsuit filed by the unions. Flick believes that DOGE staffers are accessing SSA info from contained in the Workplace of Personnel Administration. That would imply that SSA’s knowledge protections do not work and that knowledge could be accessed by different employees who haven’t been vetted or educated by SSA:

“Others may take footage of the info, switch it to different areas, and even feed it into AI applications,” she stated. “In such a chaotic atmosphere, the chance of information leaking into the improper arms is critical.”

Heart for Medicare and Medicaid Companies (CMS)

What the company has: Primary private info in addition to well being info. For everybody with Medicare (this system typically for folks 65 or older), CMS has their Social Safety quantity and documentation of their eligibility, says a supply who beforehand labored with CMS and Social Safety programs who requested anonymity to protect future job prospects.

The place issues stand: In response to a press release from a CMS spokesperson, two veteran workers of CMS are “main the collaboration with DOGE.” The DOGE staffers have been given “read-only entry” and “not one of the info they’ve entry to incorporates the private well being info of Medicare or Medicaid enrollees,” the spokesperson stated.

Why it issues: “They’ve the biggest quantity of information in a single single place concerning the largest group of customers of well being care,” says the individual accustomed to CMS programs.

An information breach may imply the sharing of People’ delicate well being knowledge – and an organization may use well being knowledge and monetary knowledge collectively to cost folks extra for well being companies.

Veterans Affairs has huge shops of knowledge, together with veterans’ well being knowledge.

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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photos/Getty Photos North America

Veterans Affairs (VA)

What the company has: VA’s well being care arm is the biggest built-in well being care community within the nation, so the company has huge shops of veterans’ well being knowledge. That features information of substance abuse and dependancy, psychological well being points, even notes from remedy periods. That is along with fundamental private info like addresses and telephone numbers. The VA additionally shops veterans’ army information.

The place issues stand: A DOGE staffer has been current at VA, and it is not clear what knowledge he has entry to, in keeping with a present company worker with information of the scenario, who requested anonymity to keep away from retaliation. Senate Democrats have additionally requested info about what entry has been granted.

In a press release, a VA spokesperson says “DOGE doesn’t have and has not had entry to Veterans’ or VA beneficiaries’ knowledge.”

VA Secretary Doug Collins has sought to calm issues about DOGE’s entry. “There’s additionally this rumor on the market that DOGE is … going to take private info,” Collins stated in a current video. “We received DOGE representatives right here which are doing what they’re purported to be doing,” like contracts for efficiencies.

Why it issues: Jonathan Kamens, who was detailed to the VA as an worker of the U.S. Digital Service, gives a hypothetical instance: A veteran who speaks out in opposition to the Trump administration, whose information present a historical past of PTSD and opioid dependancy following battlefield accidents.

Somebody with entry to all that info may use it to discredit the veteran within the public eye, Kamens posits.

And there is one other large threat: “The info that the federal authorities holds on folks is form of the identification theft motherlode,” says Kamens. “So in case you can simply steal the federal government knowledge, you possibly can fake to be anybody. It is form of terrifying.”

The Client Monetary Safety Bureau has troves of information on folks and firms — together with inside info that would supply a significant aggressive benefit.

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Client Monetary Safety Bureau (CFPB)

What the company has: Private knowledge together with names, addresses, Social Safety numbers, and monetary transactions. CFPB additionally has troves of information it collects because it pursues litigation. If the bureau has investigated an organization for amassing an excessive amount of info on folks, it has that, too.

The place issues stand: The Trump administration has required bureau employees to present DOGE sweeping, “God-tier entry” to the bureau’s knowledge, says Erie Meyer, the previous chief technologist of CFPB. The bureau didn’t reply to NPR’s questions on what entry DOGE staffers must CFPB knowledge and programs.

Amid litigation, the federal government has agreed for now to not delete or take away knowledge held by CFPB, following a declaration by Meyer that Trump appointees deliberate to delete databases holding CFPB knowledge.

Why it issues: The bureau additionally has the patron complaints that folks undergo the bureau about firms. “In order that database may haven’t simply folks’s info, however the worst monetary factor that has ever occurred to them and the way an organization responded,” says Meyer.

The bureau additionally has massive quantities of information on firms, together with market analysis, monetary information and enterprise plans. One concern, voiced by Senate Democrats amongst others, is that Musk may use the info that the bureau has collected on cost apps Zelle and Money App to get an inside edge for the digital cost platform he is planning.

NPR Correspondent Hansi Lo Wang contributed to this story.