SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
social security administration
The Next Phase in Trump’s War on Social Security: Chatbots
The Trump administration keeps making it harder to access earned benefits.
Sep 05, 2025
Reporting from Kaiser Health News out this week demonstrates that the Trump administration continues to make it more difficult for people to access the Social Security benefits they have earned.
This time, the villain is a phone chatbot, which is an artificial intelligence (AI) tool. Obviously, it only makes sense for the Social Security Administration (SSA) to use new tools to become more efficient and help beneficiaries access the system. The question is: Does this or any other technology work for beneficiaries? Last month, SSA reported that fully 41% of all calls had been handled by the AI chatbot. There was no data indicating whether beneficiaries were satisfied with the AI chatbot.
This push toward the increased use of AI at SSA should come as no surprise as the agency’s commissioner, Frank Bisignano, is a former Wall Street executive with a background in technology—in particular around payment processing. Bisignano fully admits that he has little background in Social Security. As ABC News reported in May:
Frank Bisignano, a former Wall Street executive, said during a town hall with Social Security managers from around the country on Wednesday that he wasn’t seeking a position in the Trump administration when he received a call about leading the SSA. “So, I get a phone call and it’s about Social Security. And I'm really, I’m really not, I swear I’m not looking for a job,” Bisignano said, according to an audio recording of the meeting obtained by ABC News. “And I’m like, ‘Well, what am I going to do?’ So, I’m Googling Social Security. You know, one of my great skills, I’m one of the great Googlers on the East Coast.”
In theory, the SSA AI chatbot should give beneficiaries prompt and efficient service. Instead, the reporting from Kaiser Health News shows that too many people are getting non-helpful and unrelated responses. The evidence here is certainly anecdotal, but it is nonetheless very significant. Interestingly, the Biden administration was trying to develop an AI chatbot but concluded it was not ready for public usage.
Bisignano’s previous work experience in the financial tech world of payments processing is in some ways like the SSA mission. Obviously, SSA processes millions of payments a month. However, there is a real fundamental difference that must be at the forefront of the discussion: Beneficiaries are far different from customers.
We got a real clear signal as to Bisignano’s state of mind in late June when during a congressional hearing he replied to a Democrat questioning him about staffing levels by saying: “You referred to SSA being on an all-time staffing low; it’s also at an all-time technological high...” Once again, I would argue that technology is a great tool, but it must be used to increase access and build confidence that people will receive the benefits they earned in a timely manner.
SSA has not released any clear statistics about how the AI chatbot is performing. It may not be the best information, but it is worth noting the SSA Facebook page paints a decidedly mixed picture of the AI chatbot.
Concern about SSA’s ability to provide efficient customer service is not limited to congressional Democrats. Back in May, a number of House Republicans sent Commissioner Bisignano a letter saying that:
We commend and support the continued efforts to make our bloated bureaucracy more efficient for the American people. However, we must use caution and consider the impact any changes would have so there are no disruptions in services for our seniors and disabled who depend on the Social Security Administration to receive retirement benefits and supplemental security income.
SSA’s use of an AI chatbot needs to be seen as part of a larger pattern of obfuscation. Consistently, the Trump administration has acted to make it harder for beneficiaries to access their own earned benefits, whether it is through cutting staff or using artificial intelligence. These intentional behaviours drive down satisfaction and confidence in the program.
None of this needs to be that complicated. SSA just needs to focus on meeting the needs of beneficiaries or, as Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts put it, “We should be making it as easy as possible for people to get the Social Security they’ve earned.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Social Security Data Chief Who Blew Whistle on DOGE Resigns, Citing 'Culture of Fear'
Social Security Administration chief data officer Charles Borges described "fear and anxiety over potential illegal actions resulting in the loss of citizen data" in his resignation letter.
Aug 29, 2025
A federal worker who filed a shock whistleblower report alleging that employees of the Department of Government Efficiency had potentially compromised Americans' Social Security data abruptly resigned on Friday.
In a letter obtained by independent journalist Melissa Kabas, Social Security Administration (SSA) chief data officer Charles Borges said that he was "involuntarily" stepping down from his position at the agency due to "serious... mental, physical, and emotional distress" caused in the wake of his whistleblower report.
Borges said that after filing his report with the help of the Government Accountability Project, he was subjected to "exclusion, isolation, internal strife, and a culture of fear" that created a hostile work environment and made "work conditions intolerable."
Borges then recounted that he filed the whistleblower report because he was concerned that Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employees had uploaded Americans' Social Security information onto a cloud server that he believed was vulnerable to external hackers.
"As these events unfolded, newly installed leadership in IT and executive offices created a culture of panic and dread, with minimal information sharing, frequent discussions on employee termination, and general organizational dysfunction," Borges claimed. "Executives and employees were afraid to share information or concerns on questionable activities for fear of retribution and termination."
Borges concluded by saying that the total lack of visibility into the actions of DOGE employees who were handling Americans' most sensitive data created a sense of "fear and anxiety over potential illegal actions resulting in the loss of citizen data."
The report, whose existence was made public earlier this week, contends that Borges has evidence of a wide array of wrongdoing by DOGE employees, including "apparent systemic data security violations, uninhibited administrative access to highly sensitive production environments, and potential violations of internal SSA security protocols and federal privacy laws by DOGE personnel."
At the heart of Borges' complaint is 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 report warns, 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. The report states that the government may also have to give every American a new Social Security number "at great cost."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'This is Criminal': Shock Whistleblower Report Claims DOGE Put Americans' Social Security Data at Risk
DOGE officials have been responsible for "serious data security lapses" that risk the safety "of over 300 million Americans' Social Security data," the whistleblower complaint said.
Aug 26, 2025
A new whistleblower complaint is alleging that employees of the Department of Government Efficiency put Americans' Social Security data at risk by uploading it to a cloud server that was vulnerable to hacking.
The whistleblower complaint, which was filed by the Government Accountability Project on behalf of Social Security Administration (SSA) chief data officer Charles Borges, alleges that Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) officials have been responsible for "serious data security lapses" that "risk the security of over 300 million Americans' Social Security data."
The report contends that Borges has evidence of a wide array of wrongdoing by DOGE employees, including "apparent systemic data security violations, uninhibited administrative access to highly sensitive production environments, and potential violations of internal SSA security protocols and federal privacy laws by DOGE personnel."
At the heart of Borges's complaint is 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 report warns, 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. The report states that the government may also have to give every American a new Social Security number "at great cost."
As noted by The New York Times, Borges did not document any confirmed breaches of the cloud system set up by the DOGE employees, but he did say that there have been "no verified audit or oversight mechanisms" to monitor DOGE's use of the data.
Andrea Meza, director of campaigns for Government Accountability Project and attorney for Borges, said that her client felt he could not remain silent given the risk to Americans' personal information.
"Mr. Borges raised concerns to his supervisors about his discovery of a disturbing pattern of questionable and risky security access and administrative misconduct that impacts some of the public's most sensitive data," she said. "Out of a sense of urgency and duty to the American public, he is now raising the alarm to Congress and the Office of Special Counsel, urging them to engage in immediate oversight to address these serious concerns."
While DOGE was established with the stated goal of protecting Americans from waste and fraud in the US government—including at the SSA, which President Donald Trump has baselessly claimed wrongly sent benefits to hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants—former Labor Secretary Robert Reich said DOGE is "potentially exposing Americans to more" fraud.
Alex Lawson, executive director of the advocacy organization Social Security Works, blasted DOGE and its former leader, Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk, for what he described as blatant theft.
" Elon Musk and his DOGE minions stole the American people's private Social Security data," said Lawson. "This was no accident. They come from Silicon Valley, where tech bros are furiously competing to see whose AI can gobble up the most data. Musk's nearly $300 million in contributions to Trump's campaign, along with buying Twitter and making it a de facto Trump campaign apparatus, were an investment—and now all of us are paying the price."
The official Social Security Works account on X delivered a terse three-word response to the whistleblower report: "This is criminal."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular