By Eric Shore, Personal Injury and Disability Attorney | Practicing since 1994 | Serving Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Florida
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If You Cannot Read the Whole Article, Read This First • Social Security judges are not supposed to search your social media to decide your case. SSA’s own written policy prohibits it. • But that policy has limits. If your case is referred to a fraud investigation unit, online information can be gathered, verified, and placed into your record — where a judge must consider it. • There is no confirmed public evidence that SSA is using AI to scan every applicant’s social media. But SSA is rapidly expanding its use of AI, and what the agency is doing inside its systems right now is not fully known. • Living your life online is not fraud. A birthday photo is not fraud. A beach vacation is not fraud. What matters is whether your posts contradict what you told Social Security, your doctors, or a judge. • If you are already receiving disability benefits, the same rules apply during a Continuing Disability Review. • Call 1-800-CANT-WORK for a free consultation with Eric A. Shore. No fee unless we win. |
Yes. But not in the way most people think. And right now, in 2025 and 2026, the honest answer is more complicated than it used to be.
Social Security has a written policy that prohibits disability judges and hearing office staff from searching the internet or social media to decide your case. That policy is still on the books. But the government is changing fast, and anyone who tells you with confidence exactly what is and is not happening inside SSA right now is guessing.
What Eric Shore has seen after 30 years
I have handled Social Security disability cases for more than 30 years. I have represented tens of thousands of people across the country in SSDI and SSI claims.
Most of my clients are not trying to game the system. They are trying to survive it.
They worked. They paid into Social Security out of every paycheck. Then something happened. An injury. An illness. Something that took away their ability to earn a living. That is what I call a DISINJURY™ case — when your health problem turns into an income problem and multiple legal issues open at once.
And now there is a new question I hear almost every week.
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“Can they see my Facebook?” “Should I delete everything?” “Can a picture get me denied?” |
Those are real concerns. Here is how it actually works.
Does Social Security normally search social media when deciding disability cases?
No. And officially, they are not allowed to.
SSA’s own internal manual — called HALLEX — states that administrative law judges and hearing office staff must notuse internet sites and social media networks to obtain information about claimants to adjudicate cases. That restriction applies whether the adjudicator is at work or at home, on a government computer or their personal phone. The specific sections are HALLEX I-2-5-69 (hearing level) and I-3-2-40 (Appeals Council level).
That means your disability judge is not supposed to go home and search your Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn to decide whether you look disabled enough.
One important caveat. HALLEX is binding on SSA staff and employees. Its enforceability against administrative law judges is less settled. Federal courts have split on whether an ALJ who violates HALLEX faces meaningful consequences. The rule is real. But it does not carry the same weight as a federal regulation. Judges are human beings, and some of them know more going into a hearing than they are supposed to know.
When can social media actually become evidence in your case?
Social media becomes a problem when a fraud issue is raised and a specific unit gets involved.
SSA runs a program called the Cooperative Disability Investigations program — CDI. It is a joint effort between SSA, the Office of Inspector General, state disability agencies, and law enforcement. Its job is to investigate suspected disability fraud.
A CDI referral can come from SSA employees, disability examiners, hearing offices, private citizens, anonymous tips, or law enforcement. Once a case enters CDI, investigators can examine publicly available online information in ways a regular adjudicator could not do on their own.
If CDI investigators find something online, corroborate it, and attach it to the record as a Report of Investigation, a judge must consider it.
Here is what most people do not know: a CDI report is non-medical source evidence. It does not automatically outweigh your medical records or your treating doctor’s opinion. An ALJ must weigh it against everything else in the file and explain their reasoning. One investigator’s report is not automatically the end of a case. But it is a serious complication — the kind that requires a lawyer to handle correctly.
Is Social Security using AI to scan everyone’s social media?
There is no confirmed public evidence of that. But the honest answer requires more than that sentence.
SSA is actively expanding its use of AI tools. GAO has reported that SSA uses a data analytics platform called ADDS-IMAGEN, which applies machine learning to help disability examiners review medical evidence. That system, as publicly described, is about medical evidence review — not social media scraping.
But here is what changed starting in 2025.
The current administration embedded DOGE — the Department of Government Efficiency — inside SSA in ways that are still being litigated in federal court. In early 2025, a federal district court judge found that SSA had provided DOGE team members with access to the personal and private data of millions of Americans without any identified reason for needing that level of access. That access included sensitive medical records, financial information, and personally identifying information going back decades. The court issued a temporary restraining order. DOGE reportedly continued pushing for access. As of this writing, the litigation is ongoing.
At the same time, SSA is cutting staff while rapidly expanding AI use across its phone systems, field offices, and hearing operations. Senators from both parties have raised concerns about AI being deployed at SSA without adequate oversight. What the agency is actually doing inside its systems right now is not fully transparent to the public, to Congress, or apparently to all of its own senior staff.
None of that proves AI is scanning your Instagram tonight. But it means the clean answer — “SSA does not do that” — requires more qualification than it did two years ago. I tell my clients what I know and what I do not know. Right now the honest answer is: the rule says no, but the environment is changing faster than the rules are being enforced.
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“First my clients lose their health. Then they lose their ability to work. Now, under policies nobody fully understands yet, some of them feel like they cannot post a birthday photo without hiding their face. These are not criminals. They are people who paid into this system out of every paycheck they ever earned.” — Eric A. Shore, Social Security disability attorney, more than 30 years of experience |
What kinds of posts can actually hurt a disability case?
The danger is inconsistency. Not activity. Inconsistency.
A photo at a birthday party does not prove you can work full time. A short vacation does not prove you are not disabled. Walking your dog does not mean you can stand at a workstation for eight hours. Disability is not a 24-hour performance of visible suffering that you are required to document online.
Many of my clients with serious disabilities have good days. Hours when the medication is working. They can sit on a beach chair for an afternoon and pay for it for three days afterward. AI does not know that. A photo recognition system does not know you walked fifty feet to get to that chair and spent the next three days in bed. It sees the picture.
The fraud cases I have seen are not ambiguous. People get referred to CDI investigations because they posted that they are back at work while collecting benefits. Because someone reported them working full time under the table. Because their posts directly contradict a specific claim in their application. That is fraud. That is wrong. If a client is doing that, I will not represent them.
But living your life is not fraud. Posts create real problems when they show:
- Work activity you did not report to SSA
- Physical capabilities that directly contradict your specific claimed limitations
- Medical improvement you did not disclose
- Business or side income you are concealing
- Statements that contradict what you told SSA, your doctors, or a judge
Context is also a risk on its own. A photo from a good day posted months later can be read as something it is not. That does not mean you need to disappear. It means you need to think about what story your public life is telling compared to what your medical records say.
Something changed, and the rules have not caught up yet
I want to say something directly here, because my clients deserve to hear it from their lawyer rather than find it buried in fine print.
A lot of people with serious disabilities live part of their lives online now because they cannot live them the way they used to. They cannot go to the office. They cannot go to the job site. But they can still go to a family birthday. They can share a photo on a good day. That is not fraud. That is living.
Some of my clients now feel like they cannot do even that without worrying about a government AI flagging the picture. They ask me whether they should make their accounts private, whether they should delete old posts, whether they need to hide their identity online just to protect their disability claim.
That bothers me.
These are people who worked for years and paid into Social Security with every paycheck. They earned these benefits. They are not applying for a favor. They are applying for something that was taken out of their wages. And they should not have to feel like suspects because they got sick or because their body gave out after decades of hard work.
I understand the fraud concern. I take it seriously. We have limited resources and none of us want them going to people gaming the system. But the people applying for Social Security disability are not criminals. They are people with real injuries and real medical conditions that make it hard or impossible to work. They are like you and me. They just got hurt.
The policy on paper says judges cannot search social media. But the environment right now — with DOGE, rapid AI expansion, and a federal agency under significant political pressure — means nobody can say with confidence exactly how these benefits are being administered at this moment. People applying for disability deserve to know that. Even when it is uncomfortable to say out loud.
This is supposed to be the land of the free. We paid for this system. We should be able to collect what we earned without being made to feel like criminals for living our lives.
Should you stay off social media while applying for disability?
You do not have to disappear. But you do need to be deliberate.
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The rule is simple: Do not post anything that tells a different story than what you told Social Security, your doctors, or a judge. That does not mean exaggerating your condition. It does not mean hiding your life. It means being consistent. |
Three things you can do right now:
- Set your accounts to private. This limits what a casual search turns up going forward. It does not erase what is already public everywhere, but it reduces new exposure.
- Think before you post. Before sharing anything, ask whether it could be read as contradicting your claimed limitations. If there is any doubt, hold off — or ask your lawyer first.
- Do not delete posts without talking to a lawyer first. Deleting content that is relevant to a pending legal matter can create its own problems. Get advice before you act.
Your medical records, your function report (the form SSA sends you asking about your daily activities and limitations), and your hearing testimony are the foundation of your case. The goal is for your public life not to undermine that foundation.
What if you are already receiving disability benefits?
Everything above applies to you too.
Social Security periodically reviews cases to confirm that recipients still qualify. These are called Continuing Disability Reviews — CDRs. The frequency depends on how likely SSA considers your condition to improve.
During a CDR, SSA is looking for evidence that your condition has improved enough that you can return to work. The same CDI fraud investigation pathway exists. If someone reports you, or if SSA flags your case, online information can enter your record through the same process described above.
The consistency principle applies at every stage — application, appeal, and ongoing receipt of benefits. What you post today can become relevant in a review two years from now.
If you receive a CDR notice and you are uncertain about anything, call a lawyer before you respond. How you answer a CDR matters as much as how you filed the original application.
Common questions about Social Security and social media
Can Social Security look at your Facebook?
A disability judge is not supposed to search your Facebook to decide your case. SSA’s own policy prohibits it. But if a fraud investigation is opened and investigators find something on your Facebook, corroborate it, and place it in your record, a judge must consider it. The prohibition is on judges searching independently — not on investigators doing their jobs through the CDI program.
Can Social Security deny me because of a photo?
Not based on a photo a judge found on their own — that would violate SSA policy. But if that photo was gathered through a CDI investigation, corroborated, and entered into the record, it becomes evidence the judge must weigh. A CDI report is non-medical source evidence that must be evaluated alongside your medical records, not automatically above them. One photo does not end a case. But it can create a fight you need a lawyer for.
Should I delete my social media accounts when I apply?
Do not delete anything without talking to a lawyer first. Deleting content that is relevant to a pending legal matter can create problems of its own. Setting accounts to private is a safer immediate step. The more important question is whether anything you have already posted directly contradicts your application — and if it does, a lawyer needs to know before SSA does.
What if my posts show me doing activities I said I cannot do?
Call a lawyer immediately. The answer depends entirely on what you claimed and what the post actually shows. Someone who cannot lift more than ten pounds can still hold a grandchild in a photo. Someone who cannot walk long distances can still sit at a table at a family gathering. Context changes everything. Do not assume the worst, and do not try to explain it to SSA without legal help.
Is DOGE looking at disability applicants’ social media?
There is no confirmed public evidence of that specifically. What is confirmed is that DOGE had broad access to SSA’s internal systems — including sensitive personal data on millions of Americans — and that access has been the subject of federal court orders and ongoing litigation since early 2025. Whether any of that access was used to review disability applicants’ social media is not publicly known.
Does making my Facebook private protect my disability case?
It reduces exposure going forward. It limits what shows up in a casual search. It does not make previously public content disappear from everywhere — CDI investigators have methods beyond a standard web search. The stronger protection is not having posted things that directly contradict your application in the first place.
What if I am already receiving benefits — does any of this apply to me?
Yes. SSA conducts periodic Continuing Disability Reviews to confirm you still qualify. The same CDI investigation pathway applies. Investigators can gather online information and place it in your record during a CDR the same way they can during an initial application. Staying consistent between your medical records and your public posts matters for as long as you are receiving benefits.
The Bottom Line
Social Security judges are generally not supposed to search social media to decide your disability case. That is the rule as written, and it comes from SSA’s own manual.
If your case is referred for a fraud investigation, publicly available online information can be gathered, verified, placed into the record, and considered — though it must still be weighed against all other evidence, including your medical records.
Whether those rules are being followed consistently right now — with DOGE having had access to SSA’s systems, AI being rapidly deployed across the agency, and SSA under significant political pressure — is genuinely uncertain. Saying otherwise would not be honest.
What I tell every client: be honest, be consistent, and do not post things online that contradict what you are telling Social Security, your doctors, or a judge. Living your life is not fraud. Getting caught lying to a federal agency is.
Eric A. Shore has been fighting these cases for more than 30 years. He has represented tens of thousands of clients across the country in SSDI and SSI claims. His practice is built around DISINJURY™ cases — the intersection of serious injury or illness and the income loss that follows. If you are applying for disability and not sure how to protect yourself through this process, call for a free consultation with Eric A. Shore. No fee unless we win.
About Eric A. Shore
Eric A. Shore has been licensed to practice law since 1994. He founded the Law Offices of Eric A. Shore in 1999 and has spent more than 30 years representing tens of thousands of clients in Social Security disability, Supplemental Security Income, long-term disability, personal injury, and workers’ compensation claims across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Florida.
He is licensed in all three states, with offices in Philadelphia, Drexel Hill, Cherry Hill, Atlantic City, and Fort Lauderdale.
His practice is organized around what he calls a DISINJURY™ case: the situation where a serious injury or illness does not just affect a person’s health — it stops their income and opens multiple legal claim windows at the same time. Most people who get hurt have more claims available than they realize, and more deadlines running than they know about. His firm’s job is to make sure none of those windows close before a client has had a chance to pursue them.
He can be reached at 1-800-CANT-WORK or at 1800cantwork.com.
Eric Shore is a personal injury and disability attorney at the Law Offices of Eric A. Shore. He has been representing injured and disabled clients since 1994. The firm has recovered more than $250 million for over 40,000 clients across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Florida.
