'Terrifying': Top Dem says DOGE is building a 'master database' of Americans’ private info

18 April

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) attends the 2022 NATO summit in Madrid, Spain (Image: Shutterstock)

Hundreds of millions of Americans' highly sensitive personal information may soon be in a database controlled by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

That's according to a Friday article in tech publication The Verge, which reported that Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) — the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee — is sounding the alarm over a massive new undertaking by the South African centibillionaire's quasi-agency. Connolly wrote a letter requesting an official committee investigation into DOGE, saying that he believes Musk is building a "master database" combining information about Americans previously contained within separate systems scattered between multiple other agencies.

In his letter, Connolly alleged that DOGE personnel have "backpacks full of laptops" that engineers are using to combine data from agencies like the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), among others. He warned that centralizing so much sensitive data was a tremendous security risk that may be a violation of federal law.

"In an apparent attempt to sidestep network security controls, the Committee has learned that DOGE engineers have tried to create specialized computers for themselves that simultaneously give full access to networks and databases across different agencies," the Virginia Democrat wrote. "Such a system would pose unprecedented operational security risks and undermine the zero-trust cybersecurity architecture that prevents a breach at one agency from spreading across the government."

Aside from Connolly's concerns about privacy violations, other experts pointed out that such a database would prove to be a powerful "weapon" if a foreign adversary or other hostile actor managed to obtain it. Electronic Privacy Information Center senior counsel John Davisson told the Verge that such an outcome would be "terrifying."

"Aggregation of data is building a weapon, essentially, and it’s one that can be used in a lot of different ways," he said.

Concerns about whether DOGE would effectively safeguard Americans' data are valid, considering the track record of one of its more high-profile staffers. Bloomberg reported in February that 19 year-old Edward Coristine (who goes by the moniker "Big Balls") was fired from a previous employer for disclosing company secrets.

Click here to read the Verge's full article.

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