Privacy Act; Implementation

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES <CFR>45 CFR Part 5b</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number ACF-2024-0015]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0970-AD15</RIN> <SUBJECT>Privacy Act; Implementation</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule with request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In accordance with subsection (k)(2) of the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended (the Privacy Act or the Act), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS or Department) is exempting a new system of records maintained by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), Unaccompanied Children Bureau (UCB), System No. 09-80-0323, “ORR Unaccompanied Children Bureau (UCB) Child Abuse or Neglect Investigation Records and Central Registry,” from certain requirements of the Privacy Act. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective February 6, 2025, without further action, unless adverse comments are received. If adverse comments are received, a timely notification of withdrawal will be published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . Submit either electronic or written comments regarding this document no later than January 22, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit comments, identified by agency name and Docket No. ACF-2024-0015, by any of the following methods: <HD SOURCE="HD2">Electronic Submissions</HD> Submit electronic comments in the following way: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Written Submissions</HD> Submit written submissions in the following ways: • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Hanan Abu Lebdeh, Senior Agency Officer for Privacy, by mail at Administration for Children and Families, Mary E. Switzer Building, 330 C Street SW, Washington, DC 20201, or by email at <E T="03">hanan.abulebdeh@acf.hhs.gov.</E> <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions received must include the agency name and Docket No. for this rulemaking. All comments received may be posted without change to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and follow the instructions provided for conducting a search, using the docket number(s) found in brackets in the heading of this document. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> General questions about the exemptions may be submitted to Toby Biswas, Director, Division of Unaccompanied Children Policy by mail at 330 C Street SW, Washington, DC 20201, email at <E T="03">UCPolicy-RegulatoryAffairs@acf.hhs.gov,</E> or phone at 202-205-4440. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background on New System of Records 09-80-0323</HD> HHS/ACF recently published notice of its establishment of a new system of records 09-80-0323, “ORR Unaccompanied Children Bureau (UCB) Child Abuse or Neglect Investigation Records and Central Registry,” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> <E T="03">;</E> see 89 FR 96250 (Dec. 4, 2024). The purpose of this rulemaking is to exempt that system of records from certain requirements of the Privacy Act as permitted by 5 U.S.C. 552a(k)(2). The new system of records will consist of investigatory material compiled and maintained by the UCB about reports and investigations of child abuse and neglect, allegations at ORR care provider facilities located in States that will not investigate such reports, as well as at ORR Emergency or Influx Facilities. It will include a Central Registry of ORR care provider facility staff and volunteers determined by ORR, pursuant to ORR regulations and policies, to have a sustained allegation of child abuse or neglect of a child while the child was in ORR custody. The Central Registry will be used to vet prospective candidates to ensure that individuals on the registry are not permitted to work on ORR grants or contracts or have access to unaccompanied children at ORR care provider facilities. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Eligible Records and Exemptions</HD> New system of records 09-80-0323 will include both criminal and non-criminal ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> civil, administrative, regulatory) investigatory records of reports of child abuse and neglect allegations at ORR care provider facilities located in States that will not investigate such reports, as well as at ORR Emergency or Influx Facilities, which will be retrieved by subject individuals' personal identifiers. Such records are eligible for exemptions based on 5 U.S.C. 552a(k)(2), permitting investigatory material compiled for law enforcement purposes to be exempted from sections (c)(3), (d)(1) through (4), (e)(1), (e)(4)(G) through (I), and (f) of the Privacy Act, which require the agency to provide an accounting of disclosures; provide notification, access, and amendment rights to record subjects; maintain only relevant and necessary information to accomplish a purpose of the agency; establish and describe procedures whereby an individual can be notified if a system of records contains information pertaining to that individual and how to gain access to pertinent records; identify categories of record sources; and promulgate rules regarding these procedures. This exemption is available under the circumstances described here even though ORR is not a law enforcement agency. The effect of the access exemption on a subject individual's access rights will be limited as required by subsection (k)(2): If, as a result of the maintenance of the investigative records, an individual is denied any right, benefit, or privilege to or for which the individual would otherwise be entitled or eligible by Federal law, ACF will disclose the record to the individual, except to the extent that the disclosure would reveal the identity of a source who furnished information to the government under an express promise that the identity of the source would be held in confidence. Notwithstanding the establishment of these exemptions, individual record subjects may submit accounting, access, notification, and correction requests, and HHS/ACF will consider such requests on a case-by-case basis. Only information that is not factually accurate, or is not relevant, timely, or complete may be contested. In addition to the exemptions that HHS/ACF is establishing for system of records 09-80-0323 in this direct final rule, if any investigatory material compiled in that system of records is from another system of records in which such material was exempted from the Privacy Act based on 5 U.S.C. 552a(j)(2), HHS/ACF will claim the same exemptions in system of records 09-80-0323 on the same basis ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> 5 U.S.C. 552a(j)(2)) and from the same requirements as in the source system of records from which they originated. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Exemption Rationales</HD> The exemptions are necessary and appropriate to prevent interference with and ensure the integrity of pending, closed, future, and related investigations of alleged child abuse and neglect, protect the identity of children and confidential sources involved in the investigations, and prevent disclosure of investigative techniques. The following specific rationales explain why each exemption is necessary and appropriate for the records in system of records 09-80-0323. All subsections referenced are subsections of 5 U.S.C. 552a. • Subsection (c)(3) (Provide Accountings of Disclosures). Providing an accounting of disclosures to an individual record subject could reveal the existence of a pending or prior investigation or present or past investigative interest on the part of the UCB or another agency. This would pose a serious impediment to and undermine the investigative process by enabling a subject individual or others in concert with that individual to harass, intimidate, or collude with witnesses, destroy, conceal, or tamper with evidence, threaten or endanger investigative personnel, alter patterns of behavior, and avoid detection or apprehension by investigative authorities, which would undermine the investigative process. • Subsection (d)(1) through (4) (Notification, Access and Amendment Rights). Providing subject individuals with notification, access, and amendment rights to records in the system of records could reveal the existence of a pending or prior investigation or present or past investigative interest by the UCB or another agency and details about the investigation, including identities and personal information of children involved in the investigation, of sources of information, personal information about third parties, and sensitive investigative techniques, which could hinder or impede pending and future investigations by chilling or deterring sources of information from providing information to investigators (particularly if they are not certain of its accuracy or if they fear retribution), by providing an opportunity for subject individuals and others acting in concert with subject individuals to tamper with witnesses or evidence, and by allowing individuals to alter their behavior to defeat investigative techniques and avoid detection or apprehension. Complying with amendment requirements could significantly delay investigations while attempts are made to resolve questions of accuracy, relevance, timeliness, and completeness and would impose an unreasonable administrative burden by requiring investigations to be continuously reinvestigated. • Subsection (e)(1) (Maintain Only Relevant and Necessary Information Authorized by Stat ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 19k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━