WASHINGTON: Elon Musk‘s department of government efficiency ( DOGE ) has sparked alarm by seeking access to a system with the US tax office that has detailed financial data about millions of Americans, US media reported.
US President Donald Trump has launched a plan to cut public spending that is deemed useless or against his policies, spearheaded by Musk, the richest man in the world.
According to The Washington Post and others, DOGE officials are currently requested to have a broad access to the Internal Revenue Service ( IRS ) systems, property, and datasets.
This includes the Integrated Data Retrieval System ( IDRS ), which, according to the IRS, offers “instantaneous visual access to some taxpayer accounts”.
As of Sunday night, the plea had not been granted, the information said.
However, it has sparked concern within the state and protection experts who claim that giving access to private payer data by Musk may be incredibly dangerous, according to ABC News.
According to Elizabeth Laird, a previous state protection officer with the Center for Democracy and Technology, “people who share their most vulnerable information with the federal government do so under the assumption that it will be used legally, handled safely, and in ways that lessen risks like identity theft and individual invasion, which this reporting raises in major doubt.”
” Waste, scams, and abuse have been deeply entrenched in our broken method for far too long”, White House spokeswoman Harrison Fields said when asked about the company’s potential exposure to the delicate program, NBC News reported.
” In order to identify and fix it, it requires direct access to the system.”
The American people deserve to know how their government has been spending their hard-earned tax dollars, Fields continued.
As part of Trump and Musk’s plan to shrink the federal workforce, the IRS is reportedly planning to lay off thousands of employees as soon as this week, according to US media reports from Friday.
