Inter-Office Memorandum
TO: Joseph W. Browning, Attorney
FROM: Daniel Guevremont
DATE: 7/30/2014
RE: Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. § 552a
The Privacy Act of 1974
The Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. § 552a, is a federal law that establishes a code of fair information practices that regulates the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of personal information about individuals managed in systems of records by any agency in the Executive Branch of the federal government. These groups of records are under an agency’s control from which information is recovered by an individual’s name or some other identifier designated to that individual, such as a social security number, or other identifying number or symbol. In most cases, the only information subject to the act are those provided in a system of records. “Records” as defined by the act includes most personal information about an individual stored by an agency. Individually identifiable information including materials pertaining to person’s medical history, education, employment history, financial transaction or criminal history are contained in a record.
…show more content…
More congressional committees held hearings between 1965 and 1974. They issued reports on how the surge of national data banks and the development of electronic data collection and storage affected individual privacy rights. A critical impetus for the act was a report on government records and computers by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. A code of fair information practices was proposed in the report to be followed by all federal agencies. Congress later incorporate the code into the Privacy