Social Security whistleblower resigns citing a ‘culture of fear’

A top Social Security administrator turned whistleblower officially resigned his position Friday, citing an “intolerable working environment” and a “culture of fear.” Charles Borges said the hostilities began to take shape after he voiced concerns about the storage of hundreds of millions of Americans’ personal data on an unsecured cloud server.

‘Serious mental, physical, and emotional distress’

In a letter dated Aug. 29, Borges said his resignation was “involuntary,” but that actions taken by the Social Security Administration (SSA) were making it impossible for him to carry out his responsibilities “legally and ethically.” Borges added, “my duties…have caused me serious attendant mental, physical, and emotional distress, and constitute a constructive discharge.” 

On Tuesday, Borges, who formerly served as the SSA’s chief data officer, filed a whistleblower complaint, alleging that the personal data of hundreds of millions of Americans was potentially compromised when it was uploaded to a cloud server without oversight. 

“This vulnerable cloud environment,” the complaint said, “contains all data submitted in an application for a United States Social Security card, including the name of the applicant, place and date of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, parents’ names and social security numbers, phone number, address and other personal information.”

At the time that Borges filed his whistleblower complaint, an SSA spokesperson said that the data is “walled off from the internet.”

“The data referenced in the complaint is stored in a long-standing environment used by SSA and walled off from the internet,” the spokesperson said. “High-level career SSA officials have administrative access to this system with oversight by SSA’s Information Security team. We are not aware of any compromise to this environment and remain dedicated to protecting sensitive personal data.”

‘Culture of fear’

According to Borges, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), then operating under the direction of Elon Musk, was responsible for uploading the data. The cloud server was only accessible to DOGE and did not include “independent security monitoring,” which the SSA normally requires for sensitive data storage.

“After reporting internally to management and externally to regulators serious data security and integrity concerns impacting our citizens’ most sensitive personal data, I have suffered exclusion, isolation, internal strife, and a culture of fear, creating a hostile work environment and making work conditions intolerable,” Borges’ resignation letter addressed to SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano states. 

Borges reportedly gathered “two dozen pages of internal emails, memos and other records” to verify his claims. Borges stated that, despite his position as a chief executive, DOGE did not involve him in any discussions regarding the data transfer.

“I am put [in] the intolerable situation of not having visibility or oversight into activities that potentially violate statutes and regulations that I, as the CDO, may legally or otherwise be held accountable for should I continue in this position,” Borges wrote in his resignation letter. “The escalating and relentless daily stress of lack of visibility and exclusion from decision-making on these activities, silence from leadership, and anxiety and fear over potential illegal actions resulting in the loss of citizen data, is more than a reasonable employee could bear.” 

Borges vs. DOGE

DOGE was established to combat fraud, waste and abuse in the federal government on behalf of President Donald Trump. Musk said early on that DOGE needed access to Social Security data because of overwhelming fraud.

However, experts have refuted such claims. According to a government report, 0.3% of Social Security benefits are considered “improper payments,” typically resulting from mistakes or delays. 

Borges said that an internal security assessment described DOGE’s actions as “high risk” given the “catastrophic impact” any data exposure would have on Social Security beneficiaries. 

“Should bad actors gain access to this cloud environment, Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft, may lose vital healthcare and food benefits, and the government may be responsible for re-issuing every American a new Social Security Number at great cost,” the whistleblower complaint said.

The SSA did not return Straight Arrow News’ request for comment outside of regular business hours. According to ABC News, the SSA declined its request to comment on Borges’ resignation or the allegations in his letter. 

Meanwhile, WIRED reported on Friday that less than 30 minutes after Borges sent his resignation letter, it disappeared from employee inboxes, two SSA sources told the outlet.