A group of Senate Democrats wants to direct an audit of Social Security Administration (SSA) networks and systems accessed by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to identify whether vulnerabilities were left behind from that access.
The Protecting Senior Data Act of 2025 introduced on June 4 by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, R.I., and cosponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., would task the comptroller general with performing a comprehensive audit of SSA systems accessed by those working on behalf of DOGE.
Earlier this year, whistleblower allegations claimed that DOGE’s intrusions into the SSA systems and networks were with done aims to create a single cross-agency “master database.” Those same attempts to gain access to SSA data has landed the Trump administration in court with orders that have limited how much of that data they can access.
“We have reason to believe that Elon Musk and his little gang of frat-boy tech-bro miscreants … went into Social Security with bad intent” and under the guise of looking for waste, fraud, and abuse, Sen. Whitehouse while introducing the legislation on the Senate floor last week.
“There remains the lingering danger that when they got into Social Security data systems, they exfiltrated data, because data has enormous value, or they infiltrated bugs to do damage to the old systems of Social Security,” the senator said of DOGE’s actions. “Or worst of all, perhaps they left back doors so that Elon Musk or other folks who were interested in getting access to massive amounts of Americans data can find their way into Social Security’s data systems secretly.”
In addition to ensuring there were no vulnerabilities left behind, the legislation also seeks to identify any additional “back doors” installed or modifications made to existing software, with Sen. Whitehouse warning that they could allow “Elon Musk or other folks who were interested in access to massive amounts of Americans data” to access SSA data systems “secretly.”
In addition to directing the comptroller’s audit, the legislation would make the SSA commissioner responsible for addressing any vulnerabilities or bugs in the report and give Congress updates on those fixes.
“This is a very simple measure, it asks for an audit of Social Security data systems to make sure that those things did not happen,” said Sen. Whitehouse. “That really ought to be a bipartisan, if not unanimous, expression of Senate intention.”