Whistleblower: Trump officials copied CPR-like data of 300 million Americans

A Secret Data Copy

A new whistleblower report sheds light on a deeply troubling case within the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA). According to Charles Borges, the SSA’s Chief Data Officer, former Trump appointees—now in key SSA positions—copied the personal information of over 300 million Americans to a private cloud environment.

The database, known as NUMIDENT, contains everything from names and birthdates to citizenship status and Social Security numbers—the very foundation of Americans’ identities. For comparison, the Danish CPR-number serves a similar function as the Social Security number does in the U.S., acting as the main identifier for citizens.

“Catastrophic Risk” Ignored

Internal cybersecurity specialists warned against the decision. A risk assessment from June described the copy as “catastrophic” should unauthorized access occur. Nevertheless, these warnings were ignored.

In an internal document, cited by NPR, the SSA’s then-CIO, Aram Moghaddassi, wrote:

“I have determined that the business need outweighs the security risk … and I accept all risks associated with this implementation.”

For whistleblower Borges, this stands as a legacy of failure, where political priorities outweighed data security.

Political Influence and High Risk

The data copy became possible when the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year granted the so-called DOGE group temporary access to the SSA’s most sensitive files. Shortly afterward, the copy was approved and transferred to a cloud environment with significantly fewer security measures than usual.

According to Borges and his attorney at the Government Accountability Project, the environment was “set up without independent oversight, monitoring, or adequate security.” As a result, former DOGE staff within the SSA now have access to information most hackers can only dream of.

SSA Denies—But Concerns Grow

Officially, the SSA denies that danger is imminent. In an email to the media, the agency emphasized that “the data is behind a wall and has not been compromised.”

But concern is mounting. Experts point out that if the copy is ever leaked, the result could be identity theft on an unprecedented scale—and in the worst-case scenario, the U.S. may be forced to issue new Social Security numbers to the entire population.

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