DOGE POUND Act Imposes Secret Service Level Clearance on HHS Health Data Access

The Data Of Government health Entities must be Protected from Overreach by Unelected Nonsecure Disruption Act of 2025—or the DOGE POUND Act, if you prefer—is essentially a massive security upgrade for the government’s vault of sensitive health data. This bill locks down who at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) can access systems containing your personally identifiable health information, and it does so with a serious, almost military-grade set of requirements.

The Grandfather Clause: Who’s Already in the Club

The core of Section 2 establishes two groups of people who can access these “specified systems.” If you were already an authorized HHS employee or contractor before January 20, 2025, and you’ve kept your eligibility since then, congratulations—you’re grandfathered in. This means the bill trusts the people already holding the keys, provided they haven't slipped up. This exception is critical because it ensures the government’s current health operations don't immediately grind to a halt while everyone gets re-certified.

New Hires Need a National Security Clearance

If you missed that January 20, 2025, deadline, getting access to this sensitive data is going to be incredibly tough. Forget the standard background check; this bill raises the bar significantly. To access the data, new personnel must meet a six-point checklist that includes holding the correct security clearance granted under the National Security Act of 1947. This is a major change. We’re talking about clearances usually reserved for intelligence analysts or defense contractors, not typically the everyday civil servant managing Medicare data. On top of that, you need at least one full year of continuous civil service, a formal ethics agreement, and proof you aren't a “special Government employee.” For a new hire, or even a contractor brought on for a short-term project, meeting these requirements could be a logistical nightmare, potentially slowing down critical data analysis or program administration.

The Cost of a Misclick: 10 Years to Pay

This bill doesn't just raise the bar for access; it raises the stakes for failure. If someone knowingly accesses or authorizes access to these systems without following the new rules, they face up to five years in prison and heavy fines. But here’s the kicker: the standard time limit for prosecuting federal crimes is five years. This bill doubles that, giving prosecutors 10 years from the date of the violation to bring charges. For the average HHS employee or contractor, this means a paperwork error or a moment of carelessness—if deemed “knowing”—could hang over their head for a decade. While the intent is clearly to deter bad actors and protect patient privacy, the severity of the penalty and the extended statute of limitations are highly unusual for what might otherwise be treated as an administrative violation.

Mandatory Reporting and Oversight

To ensure accountability, the bill gives the HHS Inspector General (IG) a new, mandatory task. Every single unauthorized access incident must be investigated, and the IG must send a detailed report to Congress within 30 days of learning about it. This report has to cover what happened, assess the privacy and national security risks, and detail any payments that were stopped during the unauthorized access period. This mandatory reporting mechanism is a huge win for transparency, ensuring that data breaches or security lapses involving your health information can’t be quietly swept under the rug. Congress will know about the problem, and the public will have a much clearer line of sight into how the government is managing these critical systems.