Whistleblower Says DOGE Took Sensitive Labor Data from U.S. Labor Agency

An official whistleblower has raised concerns and shared information with Congress and other government institutions about Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) allegedly accessing and exporting sensitive data from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

According to an NPR exclusive, a group of members of the DOGE arrived at the NLRB Washington department in March and said they needed to access data for compliance with the Trump administration’s policies and improve efficiency.

However, the whistleblower Daniel Berulis—who shared documents, interviews, and communication records reviewed by NPR—as well as other workers of the NLRB department, noticed significant data being taken away from the agency by DOGE engineers.

The data, which shouldn’t leave the department, could contain information on unions, corporate private information, and details of ongoing legal cases. Berulis, who works in the IT department at the NLRB, explained that the data was the size of around 10 gigabytes, but they couldn’t see exactly what was in it.

According to the whistleblower statements, the DOGE members requested tenant access—the highest level—, that their activities remain unregistered in the log system— which goes against best practices and security standards—and tried to cover tracks with behaviors that cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR considered similar to what criminal hackers would do.

“The whole idea of removing logging and [getting] tenant-level access is the most disturbing part to me,” said one of the anonymous engineers interviewed by NPR.

NLRB workers also noticed log-in attempts from Russian IP addresses and raised concerns about new vulnerabilities after the intervention of DOGE’s team. The intentions or the reasons why DOGE accessed and removed data are unclear.

“There is no reason whatsoever for accessing the information. Now, could any agency be more efficient? More effective? Positively,” said Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California specializing in labor and information technology, in an interview with NPR. “But what you need for that is people who understand what the agency does. That is not by mining data, putting algorithms in, and creating a breach of security.”

Since the debut of DOGE’s operations this year, many workers, experts, and citizens have warned and raised concerns over the activities of the new government entity managed by Musk. Earlier in March, DOGE deployed the proprietary chatbot GSAi after firing federal workers in massive job cuts. Just a few days ago, the Social Security website crashed after Musk’s team’s intervention.