Left: Elon Musk displays a T-shirt reading “DOGE” as he walks across the White House South Lawn in Washington on Sunday, March 9, 2025 (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana). Right: President Donald Trump pauses while speaking in the Oval Office on Tuesday, May 20, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
The Trump administration is violating the Freedom of Information Act by withholding records concerning DOGE personnel’s access to sensitive Social Security data, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by a government-transparency watchdog.
In a 28-page complaint, American Oversight accused the Social Security Administration of breaking FOIA by failing to provide records showing how DOGE teams assigned to the agency handled and shared data containing “personally identifiable information.”
The lawsuit follows whistleblower disclosures and a filing in Maryland federal court in which the government acknowledged that DOGE personnel may have violated SSA policies or a court order limiting access to the data.
“Americans hand over their most sensitive personal information to the federal government because they have to, and they have every right to expect that information will be protected,” American Oversight Executive Director Chioma Chukwu said in a statement. “Instead, the Trump administration gave DOGE access to that information, and we’re now learning about serious failures to safeguard it.”
The complaint cites details from an earlier filing in which the SSA informed a Maryland court about several technology-related practices involving its DOGE team.
Among them was the use of a third-party Cloudflare server to upload large volumes of sensitive information.
However, the SSA filing acknowledged that the agency “had not been able to determine exactly what data were shared to Cloudflare or whether the data still existed on the server,” according to the lawsuit.
The complaint also states that one DOGE employee attached a file containing “names and addresses of approximately 1,000 people derived from SSA systems of record” to an email sent outside the agency.
American Oversight’s filing details additional government admissions and media reports alleging that DOGE personnel were responsible for other data-security breaches.
In October 2025, American Oversight submitted a broad FOIA request seeking records about DOGE’s operations inside the SSA. Earlier this year, the group filed two more requests based on the court disclosures, news reports, and whistleblower allegations.
The SSA has effectively stopped responding to the first two requests, the lawsuit alleges.
“Apart from denying Plaintiff’s fee waiver request, Defendant has not communicated further with Plaintiff regarding the request, nor has it produced any responsive records,” the complaint states.
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The third request focused on allegations that “a former SSA employee had sensitive SSA data on a thumb drive that he intended to transfer to a personal computer and eventually provide to his private employer.” In that case, the group received a different—but familiar—type of response.
In July, the SSA issued American Oversight a “Glomar” response, a term often associated with contentious public-records disputes.
A Glomar response allows a federal agency to refuse to “confirm or deny” whether the requested records exist.
American Oversight appealed the response in August. Although the SSA acknowledged receiving the appeal later that month, the agency has not communicated with the group since, according to the lawsuit.
“As of the date of this Complaint, Defendant has failed to (a) notify American Oversight of a final determination regarding the Cloudflare and Thumb Drive Requests, including the scope of responsive records it intends to produce or withhold and the reasons for any withholdings; or (b) produce the requested records or demonstrate that they are lawfully exempt from production,” the complaint states.
The lawsuit makes a similar allegation about the SSA’s failure to respond after American Oversight challenged the Glomar determination.
“Through Defendant’s failures to respond to American Oversight’s FOIA requests and FOIA appeal within the time period required by law, American Oversight has constructively exhausted its administrative remedies and seeks immediate judicial review,” the filing says.
American Oversight is asking the court for “declaratory and injunctive relief requiring Defendant to promptly produce all non-exempt records responsive to American Oversight’s FOIA requests and provide indexes justifying withholding of any responsive records withheld under claim of exemption.”
The group specifically wants a judge to direct the SSA “to conduct a search or searches reasonably calculated to uncover all records responsive to the FOIA requests identified in this pleading” and to release the records within 20 days of a court order.
Because the agency may still assert exemptions even if ordered to turn over the records, American Oversight is also seeking “indexes justifying the withholding of any responsive records withheld under claim of exemption.”
“The people who stand to pay the price aren’t the officials who made these decisions,” Chukwu said. “They’re working families, retirees, and everyday Americans who could face identity theft, financial fraud, or threats to the benefits they’ve earned. Enough is enough.”
The post “Serious failures to safeguard”: Trump administration accused of violating FOIA by withholding records about “sensitive” Social Security data shared with and accessed by DOGE staff: Lawsuit first appeared on Law & Crime.
