AARP Raises Concerns About SSA Data Security

Court documents say an employee with the Department of Government Efficiency agreed to share sensitive data with an outside advocacy group

Deirdre Shesgreen,

AARP

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Published January 21, 2026

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AARP is urging the Social Security Administration (SSA) to take immediate steps to ensure Americans’ private data is protected, after revelations that a non-SSA employee signed a secret agreement to share sensitive SSA data with an outside advocacy group last year.

In a Jan. 16 court filing, Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers disclosed that an employee with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – a federal cost-cutting initiative – agreed to share SSA data with an unidentified political advocacy group.

“The advocacy group’s stated aim was to find evidence of voter fraud and to overturn election results in certain states,” the DOJ document states. “SSA has not yet seen evidence that SSA data were shared with the advocacy group.”

The SSA did not immediately respond to a request for additional information.

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“SSA is entrusted with the sensitive data of hundreds of millions of Americans, and protecting that data from illegal use must be a top priority,” said AARP Chief Advocacy and Engagement Officer Nancy LeaMond.

“Anyone involved must be held accountable, and the Social Security Administration must take immediate steps to ensure nothing like this can happen again,” LeaMond added.

The court filing also stated that DOGE employees working at the SSA used links to share data through a third-party server called Cloudflare in March 2025 – in violation of the SSA’s security protocols.

The DOJ’s court filing came as part of an ongoing lawsuit, filed against the SSA by labor unions and an advocacy group, alleging that DOGE’s access to SSA data jeopardized the privacy interests of millions of Americans.

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The Jan. 16 filing says the SSA has not been able to determine what data was shared by the DOGE team on the Cloudflare server or if it still exists there.

The SSA says the agreement with the outside advocacy group was not reviewed or approved by agency officials, and SSA employees were not aware of it until November 2025. The DOJ says the incident has been referred to the Office of Special Counsel for potential violations of the Hatch Act, a federal law that limits the political activities of federal employees.

Experts say revelations are troubling

John Davisson, deputy director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit research and advocacy group, said the DOJ filing shows “egregious violations of the Privacy Act and the government’s broader obligation to protect the sensitive data of millions upon millions of Americans.”

Michael Astrue, who served as Social Security commissioner during the George W. Bush administration, agreed that the new disclosures are very concerning.

“You only need one mistake of a certain type to have a huge number of people harmed and in a way that can’t be fixed,” he said.

“Historically, [the SSA] has had a great track record” of protecting Americans’ Social Security numbers and other sensitive information, Astrue added. “So it’s painful for me to watch people come in … and put that record at risk.”

The new court filings seem to confirm concerns raised in August 2025 by the SSA’s former chief data officer, Charles Borges, who filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that a database containing the personal information of millions of Americans was copied onto a cloud server.

In its Jan. 16 filing, the DOJ lawyers said a review of the DOGE team’s actions is ongoing.

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Deirdre Shesgreen is an AARP writer and editor covering Social Security. She previously worked as a state news editor for the AARP Bulletin and as a reporter and editor at USA Today, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and other publications.