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Tag: social security numbers

  • DOJ sues 6 states for private voter data, voting rolls

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    The Department of Justice is suing six additional states to compel them to share their statewide voter registration lists with the federal government, an unusual request that has drawn pushback from election officials in both parties in the past.

    DOJ’s Civil Rights Division filed federal lawsuits Thursday against election officials in California, New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and New Hampshire claiming the states violated federal law by refusing to share voter rolls with the Trump administration.

    Access to voting rolls varies state by state, but the rolls are generally released to the public and government agencies with voters’ private data — like driver’s license numbers or the last four digits of Social Security numbers — redacted.

    The DOJ’s lawsuits demand the rolls with that data included. Similar requests have been rebuffed by election officials across the country, both recently and in past years, out of privacy concerns and opposition to federal encroachment in state elections. Some officials have also tied the effort to President Donald Trump’s long history of spreading election misinformation, including falsely accusing states of allowing noncitizen immigrants to vote en masse.

    Last week, the DOJ filed similar lawsuits against election officials in Maine and Oregon, prompting sharp rebukes from each state’s top elections official.

    “This is not normal,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, said in a statement last week. “Trump’s DOJ is using its immense federal power to try to intimidate us into turning over protected voter data and changing our voting processes to fit President Trump’s whims.”

    Michigan, Minnesota and California have Democrats as their secretaries of state, while New Hampshire and Pennsylvania have Republican chief election officials. New York has a state board of elections. Spokespeople for all six election authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuits.

    The lawsuits demand states to share highly sensitive information on voters, including Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers, as part of the administration’s effort to create “clean voter rolls.”

    “Clean voter rolls are the foundation of free and fair elections,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “Every state has a responsibility to ensure that voter registration records are accurate, accessible, and secure — states that don’t fulfill that obligation will see this Department of Justice in court.”

    The Trump administration appears to be prioritizing access to the private information of voters. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson sanctioned the release of some voter roll data to DOJ after multiple requests but did not include any personally identifying information on voters.

    In March, Trump signed an executive order directing DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security to take measures preventing noncitizens from voting in elections — a baseless claim that Trump has touted for years, including ahead of the 2024 election and in his attempts to delegitimize the results of the 2020 election.

    DOJ has sent requests for voter rolls to over 30 states, according to data from the Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal think tank and advocacy organization.

    Trump explored a similar measure during his first term. He established the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in 2017 to examine cases of voter fraud.

    The commission’s request for private voter information was met with opposition from state officials in both parties before it was dissolved the following year, with a then-Republican secretary of state telling the commission to “go jump in the Gulf of Mexico” in response to broad requests.

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  • Maddow Blog | Whistleblower accuses DOGE team of endangering critical Social Security data

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    Within weeks of Donald Trump’s second inaugural, members of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team showed up at the Social Security Administration and started demanding access to files. The efforts were not well received: Michelle King, in her capacity as the acting Social Security commissioner, resigned after she refused a DOGE request to access sensitive government records at the agency.

    The underlying concern did not go away. The New York Times reported:

    Members of the Department of Government Efficiency uploaded a copy of a crucial Social Security database in June to a vulnerable cloud server, putting the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans at risk of being leaked or hacked, according to a whistle-blower complaint filed by the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer. The database contains records of all Social Security numbers issued by the federal government.

    The Times’ report added that the database in question “includes individuals’ full names, addresses and birth dates, among other details that could be used to steal their identities, making it one of the nation’s most sensitive repositories of personal information.”

    It’s an open question as to why, exactly, DOGE would even want to upload such a database. (The controversial operation is ostensibly searching for fraud within the Social Security system, though its previous claims on the matter have fallen apart under scrutiny.)

    The whistleblower in this case is Charles Borges, the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer, who alleges that DOGE members copied the highly sensitive data without any kind of “independent security monitoring,” which in turn created “enormous vulnerabilities.”

    Borges didn’t say that the database had been breached, but his complaint added that there was no oversight to assess how and why DOGE was using the data. The Times’ report added:

    ‘Should bad actors gain access to this cloud environment, Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft, may lose vital health care and food benefits, and the government may be responsible for reissuing every American a new Social Security number at great cost,’ Mr. Borges’s complaint said. He alleged that DOGE did not involve him in discussions about the project, despite his role as chief data officer, leaving him to piece together evidence of what had happened after the fact.

    A spokesperson for the department said in a written statement, “Commissioner [Frank] Bisignano and the Social Security Administration take all whistleblower complaints seriously. SSA stores all personal data in secure environments that have robust safeguards in place to protect vital information.

    “The data referenced in the complaint is stored in a long-standing environment used by SSA and walled off from the internet. High-level career SSA officials have administrative access to this system with oversight by SSA’s Information Security team. We are not aware of any compromise to this environment and remain dedicated to protecting sensitive personal data.”

    In recent months, a variety of federal whistleblowers have come forward, and for the most part, the congressional Republican majority has ignored them — even when confirming Bisignano to lead the Social Security Administration. Whether GOP lawmakers express similar indifference to Borges remains to be seen. Watch this space.

    This article was originally published on MSNBC.com

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  • Multiverse, the apprenticeship unicorn, acquires Searchlight to put a focus on AI | TechCrunch

    Multiverse, the apprenticeship unicorn, acquires Searchlight to put a focus on AI | TechCrunch

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    Multiverse, the U.K. unicorn that builds apprenticeship programs for people to learn technology skills while on the job, has made an acquisition as it aims to skill up itself. The company has bought Searchlight, a startup and recruitment platform that uses artificial intelligence-based technology to source talent. The plan will be to use Searchlight’s tech to build new AI products for Multiverse to expand its professional training services.

    “Searchlight’s AI, platform, and exceptional talent will allow us to better diagnose the skills needed within companies and deliver impactful solutions,” said Multiverse’s founder and CEO Euan Blair in a statement. “Combining our scale and world-class learning with Searchlight’s technology and team will ensure even more companies and individuals benefit.”

    Searchlight was co-founded by twin sisters Kerry and Anna Wang (respectively CEO and CTO). Its existing customers (which include Udemy, Zapier, Talkdesk and other tech companies) will continue to be served until the ends of their contracts. After that, the plan will be to wind down Searchlight’s recruitment services as they focus on Multiverse’s business.

    The deal underscores the increasing role that AI is playing in the worlds of work and education. Some people will use AI to speed up what they do; others will claim that AI is taking over certain jobs altogether. This acquisition addresses a third area where AI is appearing: to help build more efficient professional training services to fill recruitment gaps.

    AI and recruitment have at times been strange bedfellows. Amazon famously once had to scrap an AI recruitment tool after it was found to be inherently biased against women for technical roles, due to being trained on typical recruitment data, which more commonly came from men. But technology — and more pointedly awareness around how models are being built and trained — have come a long way since then, Searchlight’s CEO told TechCrunch.

    “Our AI model is able to identify a good match for a role four times greater than a traditional interview,” Wang said. “We’re solving for the exact same problem, which is increased equitable access to economic opportunity for everyone. Multiverse had a great business but they’re looking to expand into an all in one workforce development platform.” Kerry will become director of product at Multiverse, while Anna will become head of AI.

    Founded and led by Blair (the son of former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and high-profile barrister Cherie Booth Blair), Multiverse currently has around 1,000 customers, with its list of past and present clients including Cisco, government organizations, financial services and industrial companies.

    While Multiverse first made its name with a focus on apprenticeships as a viable alternative for people looking to build careers in fast-moving fields like technology, it has since expanded to cover professional training for people already employed. Multiverse has some AI-based services live now, said Ujjwal Singh, the company’s CTO and CPO: it already offers a personalized AI assistant coach for users. Now it clearly wants to keep layering in more technology to improve the overall platform, and its credibility with a set of customers intent on buying and using what appear to be the most modern services they can.

    Financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed, but for some context, the Wang sisters — both impressive and accomplished Stanford grads — took their startup through Y Combinator in 2018. Altogether Searchlight raised nearly $20 million, but that was primarily via a fundraise dating several years back, a $17 million Series A in 2021. Its long list of investors included a number of prominent names such as Accel, Founders Fund, Emerson Collective, and Shasta Ventures. Pitchbook estimated its valuation in 2021 at $64 million.

    Multiverse, meanwhile, was last valued at $1.7 billion in 2022 and has been on a fundraising tear over the years, raising several hundred million dollars from investors that include General Catalyst and Lightspeed. This is the company’s second acquisition after it acquired another YC company, Eduflow, last year.

    From what we understand, investors are “happy” with the outcome. “From the start, Anna and Kerry have been thoughtful about building Searchlight’s AI models to complement their vision,” Keith Rabois, who led the Series A, said in a statement provided to TechCrunch. “Searchlight’s differentiated technology is a magnet for innovative companies like Multiverse. I am excited by the upside of this acquisition for Searchlight and Multiverse.”

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    Ingrid Lunden

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