Original article by republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
A demonstrator expresses concerns over the sharing of private personal data by the Department of Government Efficiency at a “Hands Off!” protest against the Trump administration on April 5, 2025 in Riverside, California. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
The DOJ filing also appeared to corroborate claims that DOGE employees improperly tried to make “a live copy of the country’s Social Security information” on a third-party cloud platform.
In a court filing dated January 16, the DOJ revealed that the unidentified organization last March reached out to two DOGE employees, who were working at the Social Security Administration (SSA), and requested that they “analyze state voter rolls that the advocacy group had acquired.”
“The advocacy group’s stated aim was to find evidence of voter fraud and to overturn election results in certain states,” the DOJ wrote. “In connection with these communications, one of the DOGE team members signed a ‘Voter Data Agreement,’ in his capacity as an SSA employee, with the advocacy group.”
The filing said that SSA has “not yet seen evidence that SSA data were shared with the advocacy group,” but that it had reviewed emails indicating that “DOGE team members could have been asked to assist the advocacy group by accessing SSA data to match to the voter rolls.”
The DOJ also revealed that the SSA in December 2025 made referrals of the two DOGE employees to the US Office of Special Counsel for possible violations of the Hatch Act, which bars federal government employees from using their positions for political purposes.
Politico, which first reported on the DOJ filing, noted that the disclosure “came as part of a list of ‘corrections’ to testimony by top SSA officials during last year’s legal battles over DOGE’s access to Social Security data,” and also included revelations that “DOGE team members shared data on unapproved ‘third-party’ servers and may have accessed private information that had been ruled off-limits by a court at the time.”
The admission that DOGE employees shared data on a third-party server bolsters an explosive whistleblower complaint filed in August from former SSA chief data officer Charles Borges, who alleged that DOGE officials have been responsible for “serious data security lapses” that “risk the security of over 300 million Americans’ Social Security data.”
At the heart of Borges’ complaint was an effort by DOGE employees to make “a live copy of the country’s Social Security information in a cloud environment” that “apparently lacks any security oversight from SSA or tracking to determine who is accessing or has accessed the copy of this data.”
Should hackers gain access to this copy of Social Security data, the Borges complaint warned, it could result in identity theft on an unprecedented scale and lead to the loss of crucial food and healthcare benefits for millions of Americans. In a worst-case scenario, the complaint said, the government may also have to give every American a new Social Security number “at great cost.”
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Danny Kruger acknowledged during the press conference in London that Reform was an ‘ill-disciplined’ ship. Photograph: Ben Whitley/PA
Party’s Doge chief says he would cut civil service and close six government offices – most of which are already closing
Reform UK would allow ministers to ignore international law and give them the ability to fire civil servants in a Donald Trump-style overhaul of government powers, the party’s new efficiency tsar has said.
Danny Kruger, who defected to Reform from the Conservatives last month, set out the party’s plans to change the way the government and civil service operate, handing more power to the cabinet.
The party’s department of government efficiency (Doge) chief said he would want to rewrite the ministerial code and the civil service code to free the government from current constraints.
“There is a glaring objection that I have to the ministerial code … which is that it requires them to acknowledge international law in their decision-making. That is an immediate change we would make,” Kruger said.
A line in the code says: “The ministerial code should be read against the background of the overarching duty on ministers to comply with the law, including international law and treaty obligations.”
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A “rogue” government could seize sensitive information on UK residents, data privacy experts fear.
Labour’s new data access law would allow the UK government to replicate an Elon Musk-style DOGE data-grab, experts and campaigners have warned.
They believe the new law is “ripe for abuse” and could be weaponised by a future Reform UK administration to further its anti-climate, anti-asylum, anti-government agenda.
The Data (Use and Access) Act, which will come into effect next year, empowers ministers to use ‘Henry VIII powers’ – named after the instruments the medieval King used in 1539 to bypass Parliament and rule by decree – to legally access massive quantities of government data with little parliamentary scrutiny.
“The bill has provided any government from this time onward with powers which are ripe for abuse. It gives any future government a blank cheque they can use to legalise the use, sharing and reuse of personal data for whatever purpose they see fit,” Mariano delli Santi, legal and policy officer at the data privacy campaign Open Rights Group, told DeSmog.
The passing of the act comes amid a flurry of concern over Labour’s growing ties to big tech companies, including recent deals with OpenAI and Google to provide artificial intelligence support for UK government initiatives.
“The Labour government has purposefully chosen to ignore risks and prioritise the commercial interests of U.S. and Chinese tech giants over the protection of UK residents’ data and their rights,” said delli Santi.
Technology Secretary Peter Kyle says the new law will “finally unleash” a “goldmine of data” to “help families juggle food costs, slash tedious life admin, and make our NHS and police work smarter”. The government claims it will “inject” the economy with £10 billion in the next 10 years.
The U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), originally led by tech mogul Elon Musk and established by President Donald Trump, has sent teams of engineers into federal government departments to access vast amounts of highly sensitive personal data on U.S. residents in what has been widely dubbed a “digital coup”.
U.S. DOGE is now using those datasets, which include information on immigration status, healthcare, and social services, to collate a “master database” to surveil and track immigrants. The department has also overseen extreme cuts to vital, life-saving services, with a recent study by the Lancet medical journal estimating that Musk’s cuts to the U.S. international aid budget could lead to 14 million deaths by 2030.
Critics fear that Labour’s new data bill will make this sort of data-gathering legal in the UK.
Imitating Trump’s administration, Reform leader Nigel Farage has already established a secretive ‘UK DOGE’ unit intent on gaining access to council data in Reform-led areas.
Reform’s DOGE unit is led by former party chairman Zia Yusuf, a multi-millionaire tech entrepreneur who has not been shy about his desire to emulate Musk’s ideas in the UK.
The party is currently polling to win the next UK general election with 28 percent of the vote – seven points ahead of Labour.
If Reform gains power in 2029, campaigners say it could use Labour’s data access law to carry out its policies, which include a crackdown on immigration, the radical downsizing of the civil service, eliminating “government waste”, and decimating the UK’s net zero projects.
“Labour is handing over the means for a future Reform government to legalise DOGE-style data grabs. In as little as 28 days, a future Reform government could make it legal for a local council or any other public body to share personal data about you with their DOGE consultants,” delli Santi told DeSmog.
A Data Grab?
The Data (Use and Access) Act, which amends existing General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws, expands the government’s ability to use personal data.
Currently, the UK’s GDPR laws require a risk assessment to establish a “balance” between the value of accessing data against the rights of those whose data is accessed.
However, under the new law, the secretary of state can dodge this process by declaring that the data is needed for a “recognised legitimate interest”, which the law says can include “crime prevention”, “safeguarding vulnerable people”, “responding to emergencies”, and “safeguarding national security”.
The categories are vague, and they could feasibly include controlling immigration or making cuts to the administrative state.
Data privacy experts have also expressed concerns – disputed by the government – that the new law provides a loophole allowing ministers to water down protection for “special categories” of data, which are designed to guard against intrusion in relation to the likes of religious beliefs, political opinions, and sexual orientation.
“Ultimately I remain worried that a bad faith actor could come in and abuse the Henry VIII powers – which were intended to make it easier to add protections to GDPR – to undermine the special category data protections,” Duncan McCann, the technology and data lead at the Good Law Project campaign group, told DeSmog. “The importance of special category data means that it should only be amended by Parliament”.
However, even if a government was successful in watering down special category protections, campaigners have warned that diverging from the status quo would seriously compromise the UK’s ability to transfer data with other countries, including the EU, and would have negative economic consequences.
McCann believes this would stop most governments from taking action. “This cost has ensured that governments don’t drastically alter the fundamentals of data protection legislation,” he said.
Despite this, McCann added that “a potential Reform government may be less interested or susceptible to rational economic arguments, making radical divergence from GDPR, if they won, more likely”.
Moreover, even if a Reform government maintained protections against sharing special category data, personal information including tax details, criminal convictions, and immigration status data are not protected in the same way and could be harvested by a Farage government.
Reform’s Council Crusade
Battles have ensued since Reform won control of 10 councils in May’s local elections, with Farage’s party attempting to wrest control of potentially sensitive data for its DOGE operation.
Kent County Council, the first to receive a visit from Yusuf’s unit and a letter from Reform demanding “all council-held documents, reports, and records”, has so far resisted the efforts, hiring external lawyers to challenge the plan.
West Northamptonshire Council agreed in July to allow Yusuf’s largely anonymous team of analysts to access council data and ostensibly reduce local “fraud and waste” – a move that has been labelled an “assault on local democracy” by critics.
Reform claims that it has already saved £100 million since May, although many of the projects cut by the party would have involved introducing clean heating technology that would have saved councils money.
Reform UK chair Zia Yusuf and leader Nigel Farage. Credit: Imageplotter / Alamy Stock Photo
‘Project Chainsaw’
Labour has also used utopian language about the benefits of deploying data analysis and artificial intelligence to cut the size of the state.
“If we push forward with digital reform of government – and we are going to do that, we can make massive savings, £45 billion savings in efficiency. AI is a golden opportunity,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in March.
Starmer promised to “send teams into every government department with a clear mission from me to make the state more innovative and efficient”.
The initiative – which The Guardian reported was at one time referred to as “Project Chainsaw” – was seemingly influenced by a proposal from the Labour Together think tank. The name references Javier Milei, the President of Argentina, who gifted Elon Musk a chainsaw as a symbol for dismantling the U.S. state.
Milei has cut 50,000 public sector jobs and slashed Argentina’s health care budget by 48 percent in real terms since he took office in December 2023.
Labour Together told The Guardian that its initiative would have “’Milei’s energy but with a radical centre-left purpose”.
Data privacy experts have also cautioned that the data access law could “threaten democracy” by potentially compromising the integrity of elections. Campaigners warn the act will allow governments, including the current Labour government, to alter rules about how a political party can use data in the months leading up to an election, which could be used in a ruling party’s favour.
The government told DeSmog that “the Data (Use and Access) Act will not only allow us to harness the power of data to improve public services as part of our Plan for Change, but to do so in a way which also maintains our world-leading data protection standards.”
Despite these reassurances, delli Santi of Open Rights Group remains concerned. This law, he said, “lacks meaningful safeguards that would prevent it being used to enable disproportionate surveillance, discrimination, and creepy invasions into our private life”.
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Reform Party leader Nigel Farage celebrates his party candidate Sarah Pochin winning the Runcorn and Helsby byelection by six votes Photograph: Anthony Devlin/Getty Images
The head of the UK’s biggest union has urged staff at Reform UK-controlled councils to sign up after Nigel Farage warned workers to seek “alternative careers”.
Farage said during a speech on Friday that he would advise council staff working on diversity or climate change initiatives to seek “alternative careers very, very quickly” after Reform UK took control of Durham county council.
The Clacton MP’s party made major gains in Thursday’s local elections, picking up 10 councils and more than 600 seats. The party also won two mayoral races and secured a fifth MP in Runcorn and Helsby with Sarah Pochin.
Responding to Farage’s comments, Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said: “Unions are there to ensure no one can play fast and loose with the law.
“Any staff working for councils now controlled by Reform, and who aren’t yet members, should sign up so they can be protected too.”
Farage has said he wants a British equivalent of Doge – referring to the Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency”, which is slashing government spending in the US, in every council.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), left, joins Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on stage before speaking at “Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here” rally Thursday, March 20, 2025, in North Las Vegas. (Photo: Ronda Churchill for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“People are starting to put the pieces together, and ironically the most divisive forces in this country are actually starting to bring more of us together,” said Ocasio-Cortez.
A stop on Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ nationwide town hall tour “Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here” in Tempe, Arizona that also featured Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York on Thursday broke the record for the number of attendees at an event hosted by Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, in the state, according to his director of communications.
“This is a big deal,” wrote communications director Anna Bahr on X of the gangbusters turnout.
“Just to be clear about the moment we’re in: Bernie Sanders’ biggest crowd in Phoenix previously was 11,300 in 2015 when he was running for president. Tonight, in a non-campaign year, when he is running for nothing, 15,000 Arizonans turned out,” she wrote. Bahr also said that more than 123,000 people watched the livestream of the event online.
Just to be clear about the moment we’re in:@BernieSanders biggest crowd in Phoenix previously was 11,300 in 2015 when he was *running for president.*
Tonight, in a non-campaign year, when he is running for nothing, **15,000** Arizonans turned out.
Footage of the event shows a completely packed event space at Arizona State University’s Mullet Arena. At least a 1,000 people could not enter the arena because there was no room inside, according to the Arizona Mirror.
Sanders launched his “Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here” tour, which focuses on working-class districts that President Joe Biden won in 2020 but were won by a House Republican in 2024, in February, with the aim of talking to Americans about the “takeover of the national government by billionaires and large corporations, and the country’s move toward authoritarianism.”
In their remarks on Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders spoke about Republican efforts to target programs like Social Security and Medicaid and billionaire Elon Musk’s influence over the GOP.
“The billionaires who are taking a wrecking ball to our country,” said Ocasio-Cortez—alluding to Musk’s efforts to slash federal spending and personnel with the Department of Government Efficiency, and other billionaires in U.S. President Trump’s orbit—”derive their power from dividing working people apart.”
“People are starting to put the pieces together, and ironically the most divisive forces in this country are actually starting to bring more of us together,” said Ocasio-Cortez.
“Their disdain for working people,” she continued, “is a shorthand for the right’s entire political agenda and a certain kind of ugly politics in this country—and that is lying to and screwing over working at middle class Americans so that they can steal our healthcare, Social Security, and veterans benefits.”
When Sanders took the stage, he said, “Trump and his billionaire friends have never, ever had it so good in the history of this country.”
.@AOC takes the stage to completely full arena in Tempe — with thousands more in the overflow outside the arena pic.twitter.com/t1YNu3Gp9e
Sanders also argued that if a Republican voiced opposition to Republicans’ plan to deliver tax cuts that will primarily benefit the wealthy, “Musk in five minutes would say, ‘we are going to primary you’… That is not a democracy.”
Musk—who donated hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump and other GOP candidates in 2024—has threatened to fund moderate candidates in heavily Democratic districts.
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