The Washington Post reports:
Agents of billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have gained access to highly restricted government records on millions of federal employees — including Treasury and State Department officials in sensitive security positions — as part of a broader effort to wrest control over the government’s main personnel agency, according to four U.S. officials with knowledge of the developments.
The officials, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, expressed alarm about potential breaches or abuses of such records by members of an administration whose senior-most officials, including President Donald Trump, have threatened to retaliate against federal workers accused of disloyalty.
Kevin Couture Files a Breach Report
But it’s not just anonymous government officials who are worried or upset about Musk and his team accessing personal and sensitive information. And one citizen wasn’t afraid to put his name to his outrage.
Kevin Couture, a resident of Maine, submitted a breach report to the state of Maine naming Elon Musk as the entity responsible for a data breach involving his personal information:
Data Breach Notifications
Entity Information
- Type of Organization: Other Government Entity
- Entity Name: Elon Musk c/o The White House
- Street Address: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
- City: Washington
- State, or Country if outside the US: DC
- Zip Code: 20500
Submitted By
- Name: kevin couture
- Title: self
- Firm name (if different than entity):
- Telephone Number: [redacted by DataBreaches.net]
- Email Address: [redacted by DataBreaches.net]
- Relationship to entity whose information was compromised: American citizen
Breach Information
- Total number of persons affected (including residents): 1
- Total number of Maine residents affected: 1
- If the number of Maine residents exceeds 1,000, have the consumer reporting agencies been notified:
- Date(s) Breach Occured: February 04, 25
- Date Breach Discovered: February 04, 2025
- Description of the Breach:
- Internal system breach
- Information Acquired – Name or other personal identifier in combination with:
Notification and Protection Services
- Type of Notification: Electronic
- Date(s) of consumer notification: February 04, 25
- Copy of notice to affected Maine residents:
- Date of any previous (within 12 months) breach notifications:
- Were identity theft protection services offered: No
- If yes, please provide the duration, the provider of the service and a brief description of the service:
He’s Not Alone
On February 4, DataBreaches had suggested that this was possibly the largest government data breach ever but might never be recognized as a data breach because the president authorized the access.
But now there’s Kevin Couture of Maine. Who is he? DataBreaches reached out to him via email to ask him why he submitted the breach report. He replied:
I did file that breach against him. I mean seriously WTF is going on ? I filed the report with my state AG against Elon Musk stating my privacy rights were violated as my SSN, banking info was compromised by accessing government systems and down loading the info with out my CONSENT or KNOWLEDGE !!! What other information did he gather on me or others.?
This is wrong and illegal. I have no idea who has my information now. And all his 18 year old tech lost boys may have it also and who knows what they could do with it.
Me and other friends want something done ASAP. This whole episode is completely outrageous.
So… has any big law firm claimed they are “investigating” this reported breach and looking for potential plaintiffs for a class-action lawsuit? Send in the lawyers.
Update of February 8: At least two more residents of Maine have also filed breach reports. Renee Roy-DePeter also filed a breach report on behalf of the population of ME and U.S. who have been issued social security numbers. Thant report names Elon Musk/DOGE as the responsible entities, while Martha Baldwin named the US Department of Treasury, Elon Musk et al as the responsible entities in her breach report on behalf of all Maine residents. Gotta love that Maine spirit.
This entire article reads like a bad joke, except the people writing it seem to be taking it seriously. The idea that individuals can just “file a breach report” against Elon Musk because they don’t like the fact that DOGE is auditing government records is, frankly, ridiculous. That’s not how data breaches work, and that’s not how government oversight works either. Let’s start with the most basic point: DOGE’s access is authorized and read-only. This means there was no “breach” in the sense that people like Kevin Couture seem to think. A breach happens when unauthorized individuals gain access to protected information. But DOGE was granted access through official channels, meaning their ability to review government data is completely legal. Just because someone doesn’t like that the government is being audited doesn’t mean they get to call it a breach. Then there’s the over-the-top paranoia about “Elon Musk’s 18-year-old tech lost boys” supposedly stealing and misusing personal data. This is just pure fear mongering. DOGE isn’t some rogue hacker group downloading random people’s Social Security numbers and bank details for fun. They’re conducting audits, which means checking records for accuracy, efficiency, and fraud. These kinds of audits have been done for years, and nobody batted an eye until now. The fact that people are suddenly outraged because it’s Elon Musk leading the charge in a transparent way says more about political bias than any real security concern. The most absurd part of this whole situation is Kevin Couture and his friends filing breach reports as if that somehow makes their claims real. It doesn’t. Filing a breach report against Musk “c/o The White House” is about as serious as writing a complaint letter to Santa Claus at the North Pole. The fact that they list “total number of persons affected: 1” should be a red flag that this is a personal grievance, not some massive data leak. And now we have others filing breach reports on behalf of “the entire population of Maine”? That’s not how data security works. You don’t just get to say, “I don’t like that this happened, so I’m going to pretend my data was stolen.” At the heart of this is a simple truth: DOGE is doing its job, and some people don’t like that their government records are finally being looked at closely. Why would anyone be against auditing government records for fraud and waste? What’s really going on here is an attempt to turn routine oversight into some kind of illegal activity when it’s actually just holding the government accountable. If people are worried about their personal data being misused, they should be looking at the decades of actual government leaks, hacks, and breaches that happened before DOGE ever existed, not an audit that was officially approved. This whole situation is like someone getting mad because an accountant checked their tax return for errors and then screaming, “They stole my money!” No, they didn’t. They just looked at the numbers. Filing fake breach reports doesn’t make them real, and spreading baseless fear about DOGE doesn’t change the fact that government audits are necessary, legal, and long overdue.