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SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
Social Security Administration
NOTICE: NOTICES
DOCUMENT ACTION: Altered System of Records and New Routine Use.
SUBJECT CATEGORY: Privacy Act of 1974, as Amended; Alterations to Existing System of Records, Including New Routine Use
DATES: We filed a report of the proposed alterations and new routine use disclosure with the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the Chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, and the Director, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on November 13, 2007. The proposed altered system of records, including the proposed new routine use applicable to the system, will become effective on December 23, 2007, unless we receive comments warranting them not to become effective.
DOCUMENT SUMMARY: In accordance with the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. 552a(e)(4) and
(e)(11)), we are issuing public notice of our intent to alter an
existing system of records entitled, the Visitor Intake Process/
Customer Service Record (VIP/CSR) System, 600350. The proposed
alterations will result in the following changes to the VIP/CSR System:
(1) Expansion of the categories of individuals covered by the VIP/ CSR System;
(2) Expansion of the categories of records maintained in the VIP/ CSR System;
(3) Expansion of the purposes for which we use the VIP/CSR System; and
(4) Amendment of the record source categories covered by the VIP/ CSR System.
We are also establishing a new routine use for disclosure of information maintained in the VIP/CSR System.
The proposed alterations and new routine use are discussed in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section below. We invite public comment on this proposal.
SUMMARY: Privacy Act; systems of records,
SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION
I. Background and Purpose of the Proposed Alterations to the VIP/CSR System of RecordsA. General Background
Social Security provides a variety of services to the general public in connection with various programs under the Social Security Act. This activity requires personal interaction between our employees and the public on many occasions. We originally published a notice of the VIP/CSR System in the Federal Register (FR) at 67 FR 63489 on October 11, 2002. At that time, we used information in the VIP/CSR System for management information and administrative purposes, such as tracking scheduled appointments and monitoring visitor information in our field offices, and for programmatic purposes associated with individuals' claims for benefits under programs we administer. On October 13, 2005, we published a notice of alterations and a new routine use applicable to the VIP/CSR System at 70 FR 59794. The alterations to the VIP/CSR System allowed us to maintain information that would alert employees in our offices if a member of the public takes action, or threatens to take action, that affects the security and safety of our employees, security guards, visitors, facilities, or records. We are now making additional alterations to the VIP/CSR System as discussed below.
B. Proposed Alterations
SSA believes that a threat exists to the safety and security of SSA employees, security personnel, visitors, and facilities when a beneficiary, claimant, attorney or nonattorney representative, or representative payee commits, or attempts to commit, a violent crime for which a court has issued an arrest warrant and the individual is not in the custody of a law enforcement agency, and we reasonably believe that the individual will contact SSA for a businessrelated purpose. We consider this to be the case even when an individual has not threatened or committed an act of violence directly against one of our employees, visitors, or facilities. For example, we could have a situation in which a beneficiary commits or attempts to commit a violent crime against his Social Security representative payee and an arrest warrant is issued for the beneficiary. As a result, it is likely that the beneficiary will contact or visit an SSA office somewhere in the United States in order to designate a new representative payee. If the defendant flees in order to avoid apprehension, he or she may contact or visit SSA in order to conduct other business matters such as a change of address, change method of payment to direct payment, change in direct deposit, payment of an underpayment, payment of benefit check, or to act on a scheduled appointment. Such contact could pose a threat to anyone present in the office, as well as the facility itself.
To assist us in protecting the safety and security of our
employees, visitors, and facilities, we have developed a VIP/CSR System
High Risk Alert functionality that will alert our offices about these
potentially dangerous situations. We will maintain information about individuals only when:
Since we want to ensure that information is entered into the VIP/ CSR System only as we describe above, before we enter information into the system, the appropriate Social Security field office (FO) manager, Area Director, and Assistant Regional Commissioner, Management and Operations Support, will be required to review the facts to determine if the case meets the criteria listed above. Once our management concludes that all factors are present, the case will be entered in the VIP/CSR System as a High Risk Alert.
Once information is entered in the VIP/CSR System, at a minimum,
the FO manager will confirm, every 30 days with the appropriate law
enforcement officials who have jurisdiction over the case, that the
individual identified still presents a danger to SSA employees,
visitors, or facilities. If it is determined that the individual no
longer presents a danger, the High Risk Alert will be deleted. Situations that would meet the criteria for deletion are:
The SSA Regional Center for Security and Integrity and the Division of Systems Security and Program Integrity will maintain a list of all High Risk Alert cases that have been entered into VIP/CSR System and will monitor the list to ensure that we are regularly reviewing cases.
We will issue operating instructions for our management officials' use to ensure that the changes to the VIP/CSR System are implemented as we describe above.
Before we can implement the changes discussed above, we must make the following alterations to the VIP/CSR System:
i. Amend the categories of individuals section of the notice of the VIP/CSR System to include our beneficiaries, claimants, attorney or nonattorney representatives, or representative payees who commit, or attempt to commit, a violent crime, have an outstanding arrest warrant, and who we reasonably believe will attempt to contact one of our facilities to conduct program business;
ii. Amend the categories of records section of the notice of the VIP/CSR System to include a High Risk Alert indicator and identifying information about the individuals described in item B.i above, such as their name and/or Social Security number (SSN), date of birth, information pertaining to the specific nature of the crime, and information pertaining to the date, time, and the location of the crime;
iii. Amend the purpose(s) section of the notice of the VIP/CSR System to describe that we will use information in the VIP/CSR System for the purposes described in items B.i and B.ii above; and
iv. Amend the record source categories section of the notice of the VIP/CSR System to identify law enforcement officials as the source of the warrant information that will be maintained in the VIP/CSR System. II. New Routine Use
A. Discussion
As described above, we will maintain information in the VIP/CSR System about the new category of individuals (i.e., claimants, beneficiaries, attorney or nonattorney representatives, or representative payees) who commits, or attempts to commit, a violent crime, have an outstanding arrest warrant, and who we reasonably believe will attempt to contact one of our facilities to conduct program business, only as long as the individual poses a threat to the security and safety of our employees, visitors to our offices, and our facilities. As discussed above, at a minimum, the FO manager will confirm every 30 days with the law enforcement officials who have jurisdiction over the cases that the individual identified still presents a danger to our employees, visitors, or facilities. This confirmation will require us to disclose some basic information about the individual for whom the warrant was issued. To comply with the Privacy Act, we are establishing the following routine use, which appears as routine use number 8 in the notice of the VIP/CSR System below. The routine use provides for disclosure:
To the appropriate law enforcement official, the Social Security
Administration (SSA) may disclose information regarding a Social Security beneficiary, claimant, attorney or nonattorney
representative, or representative payee who is the subject of an
outstanding arrest warrant for having committed, or having attempted
to commit, a violent crime for the purposes of determining whether
SSA should include an individual's information in the VIP/CSR System
or remove an individual's information from the system because he/she
no longer meets the criteria (i.e., the individual is in the custody
of law enforcement, is no longer a suspect or has been exonerated, or is deceased).
B. Compatibility of Routine Use
The Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. 552a(a)(7) and (b)(3)) and SSA's disclosure regulation (20 CFR Part 401) permit us to disclose information under a published routine use for a purpose that is compatible with the purpose for which we collected the information. Section 401.150(c) of the regulation permits us to disclose information under a routine use, where necessary, to carry out SSA programs. The routine use we are proposing will allow disclosures that assist in ensuring that our places of business are safe and secure for both customers and employees, and that our employees can perform their duties without fear of intimidation or injury. Thus, the routine use is appropriate and meets the relevant statutory and regulatory criteria. III. Housekeeping Change
We are making the following housekeeping changes to the VIP/CSR System notice to make it accurate and uptodate.
1. Categories of records in the system: We are revising the wording of item 7 in this section so that it clearly identifies to whom the records pertain.
2. Routine uses of records maintained in the system, including categories of users and the purposes of such uses: We have revised the wording of routine use number 6. We have not made any substantive changes to the routine use.
3. Safeguards: We are deleting the text ``or alternate participants,'' which was inadvertently included in this section of the notice.
4. Retention and disposal: We have revised the retention dates so
that they adhere to the General Records Schedule issued by National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
IV. Effect of the Proposed VIP/CSR System Alterations and Routine Use on the Rights of Individuals
The proposed alterations and routine use applicable to the VIP/CSR
System will assist us in carrying out our responsibility to protect the
safety and security of our employees, visitors to Social Security
offices, and SSA facilities. We will collect, maintain, use, and
disclose only the minimum information necessary to accomplish this
purpose. Further, we will adhere to all applicable statutory
requirements when doing so, including those under the Social Security
Act and Privacy Act. Thus, we do not anticipate that the alterations
and routine use will have an unwarranted effect on the rights of individuals.
Dated: November 13, 2007.
Michael J. Astrue,
Commissioner.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT Contact Earlene Whitworth Hill, Social
Insurance Specialist, Office of Public Disclosure, Office of the
General Counsel, Social Security Administration, in Room 3A6
Operations Building, 6401 Security Boulevard, Baltimore, Maryland
212356401, telephone at (410) 9651817, email:
earlene.whitworth.hill@ssa.gov.
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